OUR FOOD
FUTURE
THE GREENS’ PLAN FOR AUSTRALIA’S FOOD SECURITY
1
OUR FOOD, OUR CHOICE
As Australians we love our food. We have embraced dining
out, café culture, community gardens, farmers markets and TV
cooking shows with great enthusiasm. Chefs are now celebrities,
with Master Chef replacing soapies in casual conversation.
We are lucky to have a multicultural community which has
generated a global food culture which is the envy of the world.
We have access to an abundant and diverse supply of fresh
food. So much so that we have become complacent. Because
Australia usually exports far more food than our population
consumes, we think we will never be at risk of running out of
the food that underpins a healthy diet.
But our food system is about much more than producing and
exporting a large amount of a limited range of crops and food
and beverage products and assuming that we can always import
food for our own consumption.
Australia’s food security – ensuring that every Australian has
access to a nutritious and adequate diet – rests on growing
enough of a wide variety of food through the best and worst
of times.
The world has changed. In 2007–2008 as a result of extreme
weather events and opportunistic speculation in commodity
futures markets, food prices soared and some countries reacted
by banning the export of grain to keep their domestic prices
down. Major food importing countries like China and Saudi
Arabia reacted by buying land and water in other countries to
grow food for themselves, effectively bypassing the world trade
regime and opting to outsource food production.
This is the new era described by leading US academic and
environmentalist, Lester Brown, as the “new geopolitics of food
scarcity” in which it is every country for itself; an era in which:
2
Food is the new oil and land is the new gold.1
With world grain stores dropping from an average of 107 days
of consumption a decade ago to 74 days in recent years, it is
clear that feeding hungry people around the world and feeding
ourselves now depends on adopting new policies.
This is an opportunity to rethink our relationship with food and
where and how it is produced. This is a stitch in time. Just as we
are becoming more obese and subject to diet-related chronic
disease such as type 2 diabetes, our farmers are struggling to
make a living and stay on the land. This is not a good outcome
for anyone.
Nor is it acceptable that many Australians are unable to access
healthy food and the number of hungry people is rising. Each
year we import more cheap processed food, replacing healthier
local produce such as fresh fruit and vegetables.
Under the pressure of cheap imports, local food processing jobs
are under intense pressure and it’s a tragedy that brands that are
so ingrained in our national consciousness, such as Rosella, have
gone. Most farming families struggle to make a living from their
farm alone, and increasing numbers are abandoning farming
altogether. The impacts of prolonged droughts, a changing
climate, and extreme weather events are adding to the pressure.
Regional Australia risks being hollowed out.
Approximately 30% of Australia’s agricultural land is degraded,
many rivers and groundwater systems are over-allocated, and
our rare pockets of prime agricultural land and water are being
lost to urban expansion, mining and coal-seam gas.
These issues are urgent, interrelated and of enormous
consequence. Our food system has reached a crossroads, and
we must now make a choice.
We can choose to continue the way we are and accept a future
growing, processing and eating far less of our own fresh and
healthy food; a future in which we will rely on access to imports
and risk escalating prices and availability; a future in which
most of us will struggle to eat a healthy diet.
But this is unsustainable, meaning “sooner or later it must
collapse”.2
We have a better choice. We can stop taking our food for granted
and change.
We can choose to give our farmers a fair price and ensure we
are self-sufficient in nutritious food. We can understand that
our food security and regional economies will be weakened by
the loss of local food manufacturing and take steps to support
it. We can recognise that our farmers are the vital custodians
of our landscapes, and support them in adopting sustainable
techniques that restore our landscapes and adapt and anticipate
changes in the climate. We can ensure that every Australian
has access to nutritious and affordable food at all times. And
at the same time produce what we can for the world.
This is the Greens’ vision for our food system, one that is healthy,
prosperous, fair, sustainable and Australian.
Australia, and how we contribute to achieving the right to
food for everyone on the planet.
What is lacking is the political will and selection of priorities
that align with the challenges we face.
The current priority looks outwards, radically expanding our
food exports without looking at the problems and risks we face
in the changed geopolitics of food scarcity and trade. While
historically Australia has done well out of focussing on the
export of food and fibre, continuing to do so without addressing
the risks to our own access to the food we need for a healthy
diet is short-sighted.
It is time to get on with restoring more than 100 million hectares
of degraded land, stopping the exodus of farmers, and ensuring
we can produce a healthy and affordable food supply for all
Australians while still exporting what we can into global food
markets.
Given our close proximity to Asia, and reputation as a producer
of quality food, opportunities to diversify and increase food
exports will develop simultaneously with securing a sustainable
base for Australian agriculture.
To make that vision a reality, we need government to put our
people, our farmers and the environment at the heart of our food
system; and we need to boost public investment in research
and development to ensure we have the information we need.
So, let’s work together this election to adopt new policies to
improve our health and that of our land and water systems, and
at the same time help the people on the land to feed us and
be rewarded for it. It is time for optimism and change. There
is no time to lose.
As a nation we have the resources and capacity to create a
food system that is not only the best in the world but which can
share information, technology and intellectual property with the
nations that need it most. Many of our farmers, communities,
businesses, and researchers are already actively committed
to transforming how and what we grow and distribute in
Christine Milne
Leader of the Australian Greens
3
KEEPING FARMERS ON THE LAND
The Greens understand that without farmers Australians will
not have true food security or sustainable landscapes.
The Greens will:
• fund a national network of 180 agricultural extension
officers at a cost of $76.5 million over the forward
estimates. These will be based in the Natural Resource
Management (NRM) regions, and their work in each region
will be determined by a regional steering committee with
representatives from the NRM region, Landcare, local
agricultural industry groups and research institutions.
Agricultural extension services ensure that farmers have
access to and can collaborate with researchers to accelerate
the adoption of sustainable and productive farming
practices
• restore a fair market place by reforming competition policy.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
(ACCC) will be given new divestiture powers so it can
break up market monopolies and market dominance,
and anti-competitive price discrimination will be prohibited.
Australian consumer law measures dealing with unfair
contract terms will be extended to farmers and small
businesses
• shift from free trade to fair trade, by ensuring that all new
trade agreements contain mechanisms that reflect the cost
to Australian farmers of meeting the highest environmental
and labour standards compared to trading partners
4
• reconnect local communities and farmers by funding
regional food hubs, farmer’s markets, farmer’s cooperatives
and other innovative solutions that help farmers sell direct
to the public and local institutions such as hospitals,
restaurants, hotels and education providers. We will invest
$85 million in a grants program over four years to help
farmers sell direct.
• investigate the implementation of a government local
procurement policy. Well-designed local procurement
policies can leverage government’s significant buying power
to offer stable demand for local producers, and keep public
funds circulating for the greatest effect to support our
economy
• lower on-farm costs by investing $100 million to help
farmers make the switch to renewable energy and greater
energy efficiency. With key farming sectors needing to
be energy intensive to maximise irrigation efficiency and
control the temperature and hygiene of food during harvest,
grants will be made available to invest in upgrading the
energy efficiency of equipment and for the installation of
renewable energy systems
• maintain recent reforms to drought assistance and ensure it
is adequately funded and appropriately targeted.
GOOD FOOD ON EVERY TABLE
Every Australian has the right to healthy, affordable food.
The Greens will:
• increase Newstart and Youth Allowance by $50 per week
to provide a fairer level of income support for people reliant
on social security. We will provide an extra payment of $40
per week for single parents on Newstart with children under
16, a total increase of $90 per week for single parents.
• end the failed, expensive and punitive income management
regime
• ensure that origins of our food and fibre are embedded
in the national curriculum for primary and secondary
education. We will fund up to 800 new school kitchen
garden projects by investing an additional $35 million,
prioritising funding for schools in low socio-economic areas,
and boost funding for adult nutrition education programs
• fund the production of an Australian version of the US’ Food
Environment Atlas, including developing and monitoring
national measures on the cost and accessibility of healthy
and unhealthy food, food insecurity, and community
nutrition characteristics
• reduce food waste through a $20 million investment in
identifying avoidable food waste, a national campaign to
educate the community, simplifying food date labelling and
working to relax cosmetic standards for fruit and vegetables
so that good food is not wasted and increase funding for
food emergency relief organisations that specialise in fresh
food rescue and distribution.
• support the implementation of regulatory means to reduce
the consumption of junk food that are shown to be effective
and do not unfairly disadvantage Australians on low
incomes
• ban junk food advertising during children’s television,
on websites aimed at children, and via text message. The
ban will cover free-to-air and pay TV channels dedicated to
children. We have campaigned with public health experts
for this action as the Greens understand that junk food is
targeted at children to hook them for life
• reform food labelling so that it provides clear information
on nutrition, country of origin, palm oil and all genetically
engineered (GE) ingredients
• introduce consistent, ethical national standard definitions
of ‘free range’ for eggs, poultry and pigs to remove the
confusion and misuse of voluntary standards
• lead by example on aid by lifting Australia’s contribution
to 0.7% of Gross National Income. We will prioritise
investment in small-scale agriculture, particularly to support
women farmers to build local food security and end hunger
in developing countries
• use Australia’s international standing as the new chair of
the G20 to make global food security a priority. We will
push for new food reserves to be established and an end
to the subsidisation of crops for biofuels. We will put reregulation of the international food commodities market on
the G20 agenda to end damaging food price speculation.
5
PROTECTING OUR LAND, WATER AND BIODIVERSITY
If we are to protect and restore our irreplaceable soil, water
and biodiversity, a major new effort must begin now.
The Greens will:
• stop the expansion of unconventional gas and coal mining
on agricultural land. We will legislate the right of farmers
to refuse entry to their properties by mining companies;
reject new coal mining and unconventional gas projects;
and apply the new national protection for water to all
unconventional gas developments, including recently
approved major coal and coal-seam gas projects
• map prime agricultural land at an appropriate scale
to inform local and state planning, taking into account
current food production needs and future climate change
scenarios. We will prioritise the conservation of prime
agricultural land as part of the National Urban Policy, and
only fund state and local infrastructure and development
requests that comply with this directive
• improve consideration of foreign ownership of our
agricultural land and water. We will lower the threshold
from $248 million to $5 million for consideration of
the national interest purchases of agricultural land and
water, including cumulative purchases. We will legislate
a mandatory national interest test and maintain a live
register of foreign ownership of agricultural land and water
assets to track overseas purchases
6
• establish an independent National Biosecurity Authority
and Biosecurity Commission, funded at $10 million a
year, to provide statutory, science-based and transparent
coordination and oversight to keep Australia free of exotic
pests and diseases
• maintain current funding levels for the Biodiversity
Fund, Carbon Farming Initiative and Caring for our
Country programs as vital support for regional NRM and
sustainable farming
• identify appropriate mechanisms for paying farmers for
the restoration and maintenance of ecosystem services
based on identified bioregional environmental stewardship
standards
• instigate long-term, bioregional scale monitoring of
landscape health based on the work of the National Land
and Water Resources Audit.
REFOCUSSING GOVERNMENT PRIORITIES
The Greens understand that government must take the lead in
re-prioritising the way we approach our food system.
The Greens will:
• reverse the decline in public research and development
in agriculture and our food system by increasing
Commonwealth funding by 7% per year. We will invest
an additional $300 million over the forward estimates
including creating a new Centre for Sustainable
Agriculture, tasked with investigating solutions to complex
cross-disciplinary issues that affect our food system
• establish a National Food Policy Ministerial Board to
coordinate national food policy, one that is chaired by the
Minister for Health and addresses the key challenges to our
food system, such as climate change
• create an independent Food Advisory Council to provide
expert advice to government on how to achieve the key
objective of a healthy, sustainable and prosperous food
system
• appoint an independent Food Commissioner, with the
core function of holding the government to account for the
implementation of sustainable national food policy
• support the creation of regional food councils to maximise
community participation in our food system.
7
TABLE OF POLICY COSTINGS
All initiatives have been costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
REFOCUSSING GOVERNMENT PRIORITIES
COST
(start date for each is 1 July 2014)
over the
forward estimates
Increase Commonwealth funding for agricultural
research and development by 7% per year
$300 million
Fund a national network of 180 agricultural
extension officers
$76.5 million
Grants to rebuild local food systems connecting
communities to their farmers
$65 million
Lower on-farm costs by funding the switch to
renewable energy and greater energy efficiency
$100 million
Establish an independent National Biosecurity
Authority and Biosecurity Commission
$30 million
Run a national food waste reduction campaign,
increase funding for food emergency relief; and
provide funding for research into financial mechanisms
to avert avoidable post-harvest food waste
$20 million
Fund up to 800 new school kitchen garden
projects and increase funds for adult nutrition
education programs
$35 million
greens.org.au/food
REFERENCES
1
8
2
Brown, L 2013, Full planet, empty plates: the new geopolitics of food scarcity, Worldwatch Institute.
Pollan, M 2006, The Omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals, Penguin Press.
Printed and Authorised by Senator Christine Milne L1 Murray Street Pier, Hobart TAS.
Chapter One
IS THE WORLD
FACING A FOOD
CRISIS?
9
Photos courtesy of CGIAR Climate.
ONE CRISIS OR THREE?
Many experts fear we are on the cusp of a major food crisis,
specifically that we will not be able to produce enough food
for our growing population.
The key facts commonly cited are that by 2050 there will be
more than 9 billion people to feed, which must be achieved in
a world where already nearly 1 billion people go hungry.3
For prosperous nations like Australia, this statistic tends to
make a global food crisis seem distant and focuses us on our
role as a major good exporter.
As a result, when it is suggested that the answer is to find ways
to enhance agricultural production by as much as 70% or face
a world where millions will go hungry, it tends to reinforce our
view of the food system that the key challenge is enough food
supply.4
However, this feels remarkably like déjà-vu. In the 1950s and
1960s the world was gripped by the quest to end global famines
and hunger, and was convinced that the key was significantly
increasing the amount of food produced, and lower food
prices. Countries like Australia responded enthusiastically by
embracing industrial agriculture and maximising production
for export.
Globally, we learnt some important and hard lessons from
focussing solely on increasing food production as the answer to
hunger, the most important of which was that it doesn’t work.5
This is evident from the situation today. Not only are 1 billion
people still going hungry, it is happening in a world where we
produce enough food for 11 billion people; more than 1billion
of us are overweight or obese; and collectively we are wasting
at least one-third of the food we produce.6
Clearly, other factors, not least of which is persistent and
widespread poverty, are just as influential when looking at the
causes and solution to global hunger; and while we are rightly
concerned about those going without enough food, the 1 billion
people overweight and obese are another health crisis in part
caused by our current food system and needs urgent attention.
We now also know that our current industrialised methods
of agricultural production, invented to radically increase crop
yields, carry a heavy price in terms of environmental degradation.
They contribute to our consumption of as much as 1.5 earths
to supply our needs and wants, and to our global greenhouse
gas emissions, causing climate change.7
Putting all this information together, it is clear that, as Professor
Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
the Right to Food, explained:
We are not facing a food crisis. We are facing three crises, poverty,
environment, and nutrition.8
This perspective is critical, as it acknowledges that our food
system is both a key part of the cause of global hunger, inequity
and unsustainability; and a key part of the solution to these
challenges. Without this understanding, we risk repeating the
mistakes from the 1960s, of solely focussing on increasing
agricultural production, and in doing so exacerbating the
problems we are trying to solve.
Our failing food system has not developed overnight, nor will it
be righted instantly. However, the threat of climate change now
makes action urgent. Our current food system is both a direct
contributor to human-induced climate change, and particularly
vulnerable to its consequences.
Already climate change is causing greater rates of disruption to
global agricultural production because of the increased intensity
and frequency of droughts, floods, and other natural disasters
along with the quieter but no less devastating diminishment of
crop yields due to changing seasons, increased weeds, pests
and diseases and shifting fresh water availability. These impacts
are only expected to worsen considerably if the world continues
to warm by more than 4˚C or beyond, as it is currently on
track to do.9
FIGURE 1 — THE FOOD SYSTEM CHALLENGE
10
SOURCE: reproduced with permission from Oxfam Report Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource constrained world - www.oxfam.org.uk
While the picture painted above may feel bleak, in many ways it
is a cause for hope, because fixing the food system will contribute
markedly to avoiding catastrophic climate change, providing
global equity and prosperity and restoring the biosphere.
This can be achieved by looking at not just how much food we
need to produce, but also how we produce and distribute it,
and perhaps most importantly, why.
For this reason, people no longer talk simply about hunger, but
food security.
FOOD SECURITY
The Food and Agricultural Organisation provides one of the
most commonly used definitions of food security. It defines it as:
When all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.10
Food insecurity therefore exists when people do not have
adequate access to food as defined above; and it can be caused
by other factors besides simply not growing enough food.
Groundwater and surface water are being extracted at rates
that greatly exceed replenishment. A significant proportion of
available freshwater is now heavily polluted, with agriculture
contributing contamination from the runoff of pesticides and
fertilisers into waterways and groundwater.13
By 2025 nearly 2 billion people will live in countries with
permanent water scarcity and two thirds of the world will face
regular water stress.14
The increased scarcity of land suitable for agriculture has been
a key cause of increased rates of native vegetation clearance to
create new farming land. These practices continue to drive the
loss of habitat and biodiversity globally. Land clearance also
significantly reduces the natural benefits to agriculture that are
derived from being part of a healthy landscape, such as natural
pest control and protection of soil and water.
FIGURE 2 — GLOBAL WATER RISK
In essence food security packages up three key questions:
• Supply – is there enough food to feed everyone all the time?
• Demand – are we ensuring that all people eat first, and that
we are providing the right kinds of food to ensure everyone
has good health?
• Access – can people afford, and easily and fairly obtain, enough
nutritious food?
The next section examines in brief the state of the global food
system in terms of these three questions, and what they tell
us about how our food system must change. CHALLENGES TO
GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY
SOIL, WATER AND BIODIVERSITY
Our planet has a finite amount of land suitable for agriculture,
and similarly a static supply of freshwater. As the two pivotal
resources for agriculture and food production, how we treat
our land and water resources has major implications for global
food supply now and into the future.
Topsoil takes thousands of years to form from the breakdown of
rocks and incorporation of organic matter and living organisms.
Partly driven by agricultural practices, the world has for some
time been losing soil faster than it can be replaced as a result of
erosion caused by loss of vegetation cover and soil structure to
protect it from being washed or blown away. Similarly, significant
amounts of soil resources have become contaminated and
sterile through pollution and poor management.11 Soil loss has
now reached crisis point with some experts estimating that the
world has just 60 years supply left.12
Agriculture is the world’s biggest user of freshwater
resources, accounting for 70% of global consumption, driven
by an increasing reliance on intensive irrigation practices.
Intensive farming has also caused a major loss of agricultural
biodiversity. Increasingly, modern farming practices have come
to focus on using just a few breeds of animals and crop varieties.
This process began during the 1950s when concerted effort
was put into providing genetically uniform and high-yielding
breeds as part of the first push to eliminate hunger through
increased production.
A further contraction of the number of agricultural plant and
animal breeds has been pushed by a handful of multinational
companies as they have commoditised and patented crop
varieties, and seek to control their profits by ensuring as many
farmers as possible use only their seeds. Just four multinational
companies control more than half of all commercial seeds, and
also own and sell genetically modified crop varieties.15
Three quarters of the world’s food is generated from just 12
plants and five animal species. We have lost 75% of plant
genetic diversity, and around 30% of livestock breeds are at
risk of extinction.16
Countries are now actively working to protect and re-introduce
agricultural biodiversity, as it is widely recognised that such
diversity will be one of our best chances of identifying and
developing strains of crops and animals able to cope with the
extremes that climate change will bring.17
11
Intensive agricultural techniques using commercial high-yield
breeds typically rely heavily on pesticides and the application of
fertilisers. Both have had a heavy impact on natural biodiversity
including plants and animals that directly benefit agriculture.18
For example heavy pesticide use kills insects that help manage
pest species as well as the pests themselves, and takes a heavy
toll on crucial pollinator species such as bees. The recent crisis in
Europe and the US as bee populations collapse, in part because
of pesticide use, is a salutary reminder that without pollinators,
much of our food supply would also collapse.19
The identification of common pesticides in the decline of bee
populations in the northern hemisphere is a phenomenon that
Australia would do well to take heed of, while we still have
healthy bee populations and the ability to proactively respond.
To ensure global food supply, our agricultural practices must
curtail their heavy reliance on freshwater, reverse the trend of
topsoil loss, stop the loss of agricultural and natural biodiversity,
and cease to be a source of environmental pollution.
CLIMATE CHANGE DISRUPTION
TO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
Direct reliance on the biophysical environment means that
agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts
of climate change. Changes and disruptions to rainfall patterns
combined with higher overall temperatures will increase the
rate of seasonal crop failures and longer term declines in overall
production. All aspects of agriculture are likely to face new
threats from weeds, pests and diseases as organisms respond
to changing conditions.
The International Food Policy Research Institute has forecast
particularly negative impacts on crop production in Africa,
Central and Latin America and Asia, including significantly
reduced yields of wheat and rice. It observed:
Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of
the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture
are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.20
The more the world warms beyond 2˚C, the far greater the
frequency and severity of extreme weather events and natural
disasters that destroy crops, arable land and agricultural
infrastructure. Other impacts will be less sudden but no
less significant, such as greater failure of plant germination
and increased loss of soil moisture due to warmer overnight
temperatures; and permanently changed seasonal rainfall and
frost patterns.
Some agricultural regions will be abandoned due to these
changes dramatically reducing their productivity and this will
see the mass movement of peoples in search of food security.
Many experts fear this will cause new conflicts, driven by
contested access to arable land and water.
FIGURE 4 — PREDICTED IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON REGIONAL
STAPLE FOOD PRODUCTION
PHOTO: Potato diversity - Global Crop Diversity Grust
WHY BIODIVERSITY MATTERS FOR AGRICULTURE
There are at least 30,000 edible plants and 8,300 breeds of
domestic animal that humans can eat, but we rely on just 5
crops and 14 domesticated animals for nearly all our food.
The incredible diversity of edible plants and animals that
we have yet to fully explore offer many species that can
grow in marginal lands and the adverse conditions that we
now face due to a changing climate.
Conserving and researching agricultural biodiversity is one
of the most important actions we can take to sustainably
feed the world.
12
SOURCE: reproduced with permission from Oxfam Report
Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource constrained world - www.oxfam.org.uk
FOSSIL FUEL RELIANCE
Oil and gas provide the fuels for agricultural machinery
and transportation, and most of the nitrogen fertilisers and
pesticides used in agricultural production are derived from oil.
Typical modern agricultural practices are now so reliant on
fossil fuel inputs to boost soil fertility and control pests they
run at an energy deficit: it takes five or more units of fossil fuel
energy inputs to produce one unit of energy in the form of food.22
There has been growing concern that cheap oil reserves have
been depleted to the point that we have reached “peak oil” –
where demand for oil exceeds available global supplies, resulting
in scarcity and significant price rises. Its heavy reliance on oil
therefore makes agricultural production highly vulnerable to
oil shortages and price shocks.
However, climate change has forced the recognition of another
kind of peak oil – one in which we acknowledge that the vast
majority of known fossil reserves must stay in the ground to
avoid a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.23
As a significant user, changes in agricultural practices to reduce
the reliance on fossil fuels will contribute to climate change
mitigation.24 Removing the reliance on artificial fertilisers and
pesticides would significantly increase the stability of global
food production, and reduce negative impacts to biodiversity,
soil health and water quality from these agricultural inputs.
One of the most significant contributions wealthy nations like
Australia can make to ending global hunger and inequity is to
invest in women farmers in developing countries.27 Recently
the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that
if women in the global south were given the same access to
resources and decision-making as men it would increase local
food production by 20–30%, enough to feed another 150 million
people.28
The most important aspect of this potential increase in
production is how it would reduce reliance on food imports
and strengthen local food security, reducing the exposure of
some of the world’s poorest people to global food price increases
and volatility. It is estimated that 80% of the roughly 1 billion
people going hungry on our planet are directly involved in food
production.29
This illustrates the reality of inequitable access to food, and
it occurs when poverty, discrimination and other human right
violations are embedded in the food system. Despite the right to
food being a central tenet in several key international treaties, it
is not sufficiently embedded in government and private sector
decision-making frameworks to address the inequities of global
hunger. This is a key reason why the United Nations appointed
a Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
FOOD DEMAND, SUPPLY & ACCESS
PHOSPHOROUS GLOBAL SUPPLY LIMITS
FOOD TRADE MARKET FAILURES
Lesser known but of equal concern is the fear that the world is
approaching “peak phosphorous”. An essential and naturally
sourced element for growing food, agricultural demand for
phosphorous is such that scientists fear that the readily available
sources will be depleted within 30 to 40 years.25 Some significant
agricultural regions, such as the southwest of Western Australia,
are only viable due to the regular application of phosphorous.
The world has not regulated the trade in food within the
context of upholding the right to food, including the necessity
of maintaining global reserves to respond to sudden widespread
disasters. This is despite the failure to eradicate persistent
hunger and a savage increase in the number of food emergencies
around the world from an average of 15 per year during the
1980s to more than 30 per year since 2000.30
Phosphorous shortages have occurred due to the breakdown
of recycling of plant and waste practises that returned it to
agricultural soils, accompanied by a large increase in demand.
It is another example of the need for global agriculture to come
to grips with its use of finite resources.
The failures of the market globally to address the crises driven
by a broken food system can be illustrated by the rise of five
interconnected trends: the undermining of local food security
by free trade; the “financialisation” of food; the rapid rise of
land and water grabbing; competition for food from non-food
markets; and the impact of changing diets on demand and
production.
ACCESS TO FOOD
POVERTY & GENDER INEQUITY
Poverty and gender inequity remain the driving forces behind
continued global hunger, and highlight the deficiencies in
focussing solely on increasing supply and trade as the answer
to food insecurity.
This inequality is strongly rooted in the treatment of women.
There are severe gender inequities in the valuing of labour, land
rights, and access to education. In the global south, women
and girls comprise nearly 50% of the agricultural workforce
producing 60–80% of the food, yet own less than 20% of the
land, and comprise 60% of those suffering from malnutrition
and hunger.26
As Australia takes the chair of the G20 group of nations in 2014,
it will be in a unique position to influence these food security
challenges, all of which challenge our traditional “business as
usual” approach to food and trade.
INEQUITABLE TRADE LIBERALISATION
& FOOD SECURITY
Free trade in food has commonly been seen as a universal
good, helping it flow to those most in need, unhindered by local
trading barriers. This assumption was made explicit as part
of the 1996 World Food Summit, which included a statement
that declared that trade liberalisation was a “key element” to
achieving global food security.31
13
This spurred the pursuit of the inclusion of agriculture
in multilateral free trade agreements, most importantly
encapsulated in the Agreement on Agriculture and the creation
of the World Trade Organisation in 1996. The theory was that
dismantling government regulation and protections of domestic
food systems would allow private ownership and capital to
create a more efficient, effective and equitable trade in food,
helping end hunger and increase the prosperity of farmers
globally. As a result both industrialised and developing nations
abolished public grain reserves and floor prices, resetting global
food security to be fundamentally reliant on market forces.32
However most developed nations kept subsidising their own
industries and maintained trade barriers, entrenching market
distortions rather than allowing fair trade with the global south.
Developing nations therefore found they gained very little new
market access as their key products.
The combination of focus on cash crops for export and inequities
in market power has left developing nations vulnerable
to exploitation. Multinational corporations avoid the costs
of providing fair working conditions and environmentally
sustainable practices by accessing food and food processing
to supply the global market from countries grappling with
poverty, who agree to such conditions hoping they will help
drive economic development.35
With 80% of the world’s hungry work directly in food production,
it is hard to refute claims that the current trade settings for
agricultural free trade have not delivered any meaningful gains
towards ending global food insecurity and hunger.36
Instead developing nations found themselves facing a flood
of imports, often artificially cheaper than local production
thanks to subsidisation, and this has created a vicious cycle
of undermining local food production through deflated prices,
which in turn necessitates more food importation to fill the
local production gap.33
The exploitation of cheap labour and goods in the global south
also undermines local food systems in wealthy countries
like Australia. Our farmers do not receive subsidies yet find
themselves competing against cheap imports from developing
nations without the same labour and environmental standards
as ourselves, and subsidised imports from other developed
nations. Since 2004, Australia has become a net food importer
as companies including the two dominant supermarket chains
bring in cheap imports, undercutting local farmers and food
processers.37
Trade liberalisation also failed to address the concentration of
private market power; in fact the exiting of governments led
to further concentration. Today just three companies control
90% of the world trade in grain; and the globalisation of food
supply and distribution has seen retail food multinationals
expand hugely; Nestle post profits bigger than the GDP of more
than 60 countries.34
The failure of trade liberalisation to deliver the promised level
playing field and increased prosperity in the global south has
been one of the key reasons that global trade liberalisation
talks through the World Trade Organisation have stalled, as
developing nations have held firm for the original promises
made by the EU and US in particular to drop their protection of
their agricultural sectors. As a result efforts have increasingly
FIGURE 5 — WHO CONTROLS THE FOOD SYSTEM?
14
SOURCE: reproduced with permission from Oxfam Report Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource constrained world - www.oxfam.org.uk
switched to bilateral and regional free trade agreements. There
are strong views that these too undermine local food security.38
The 2008 and 2011 global food price crises were a fateful
demonstration of the vulnerability of countries reliant on
trade for food security. A combination of factors including
widespread failure of crops across the world in the face of severe
weather events, the lack of grain reserves to moderate price
and competition from biofuels saw the cessation of exports by
key supplier countries and soaring food prices.39
The result was that import-dependent poorer nations struggled
to secure the staple cereal crops necessary to feed their
populations. Food riots and civil disruption occurred in over
40 countries, to the point that the global food crisis is cited as
one of the driving forces triggering the Arab Spring.40
FINANCIALISATION OF FOOD,
LAND & WATER GRABBING
Normally ignored as an asset class, the fragility and collapse of
traditional investment sectors surrounding the global financial
crisis has seen a rapid increase in the number of financial actors
investing in food commodity trading and assets, and with it, a
rise in food price speculation.
Such speculation focussed on profit maximisation has added
to food price volatility and separated food prices from real
supply and demand.41
There has also been a re-evaluation of the value of concrete
assets associated with the food system, as major private
investors wake up to the shrinking supply of arable land and
freshwater and the implications of climate change. Willem
Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, epitomised the new attitude
from the financial industry when he stated:
Water as an asset class will, in my view, become eventually
the single most important physical-commodity based asset
class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and
precious metals.42
The rapid accumulation of land and water by the financial
sector, concentrated in the developing world, is now causing
significant concern. The purchased agricultural land is being
used for growing food for export to other markets; as part of
the food security of wealthy countries reliant on food imports
that now see trade exposure as an unacceptable risk; and to
grow crops to meet other demands such as biofuels.43
Because of the loss of access to local land and water increasing
food insecurity, sometimes through the forceful removal of
local farmers, this trend in the global south has been termed
land grabbing.
Oxfam has shown that in the last decade an area of land
eight times the size of the UK has been sold off through this
new interest from financial markets, enough land to feed
1 billion people.44
While blatant land grabbing is not occurring in Australia, what is
happening is a significant surge in purchasing of our agricultural
land and water by foreign companies and countries. Recent
senate inquiries have heard from sovereign companies such as
the Hassad Australia Company of Qatar, who explained that
as a country wholly reliant on food imports they now have a
specific policy of acquiring land and water in countries like
Australia, in order to grow food and send it home.45
Australia’s policy settings do not reflect the new reality of foreign
purchases of agricultural land and water for both domestic food
security, and asset speculation purposes. We do not maintain
a register of foreign agricultural land and water purchases;
there is no mandatory application of a national interest test
to such purchases; and the threshold for any consideration of
potential implications is for sales over $248 million.46 It has
been persistent efforts by the Greens, who understand the new
geopolitics of food, that has put this vulnerability for Australia
on the agenda.47
BIOFUELS
The subsidisation of domestic biofuel production and
international demand for biofuels from the developed world are
now important contributors to continued food price increases.48
The United State of America’s mandated ethanol fuel levels
have seen up to 40% of its corn crops diverted to domestic
fuel production as a result of increased biofuel targets and
demand, rather than being sold on global grain markets for
food. As one of the world’s biggest grain exporters this has
had both a chronic, and in combination with other pressures,
acute impact on global food prices, particularly as it forges a
direct link between oil (energy) and food prices.49
The EU’s demand for biofuel has also been shown to be a key
driver for land and water grabbing particularly in Africa.50
CHANGING DIETS
An area receiving increasing attention is the impact of changing
food consumption patterns on demand and production methods.
Globally, food consumption is now characterised by the
sharp disparity between the nearly 1 billion people who
under-consume, and the 1.5 billion who over-consume. Both
over- and under-consumption of food are unsustainable, and
drive negative health and environmental impacts.51
For the first time in human history the number of people overconsuming food outnumbers those who do not have enough;
and over-consumption is no longer confined to the developed
world. For example the number of overweight people in China
has increased rapidly from less than 10% to 15% in just three
years. Over-consumption is increasingly acknowledged as a
key threat to global food security and health.52
The rise in over-consumption is driven by three inter-linked
trends: the rise in global population; rising urbanisation; and
rising income. Rising population, concentrated almost entirely
in developing nations, has been accompanied by a marked
increase in the movement of people to urban areas.
Urban living has generally delivered greater economic
opportunity and disposable income, a welcome development
in terms of reducing global poverty. However an unintended
consequence from rising urban populations is that enormous
pressure is being placed on the global food system from far
greater access to nutrient-dense foods through the globalised
15
food chain. The result of this convergence is known as the
‘nutrition transition’, with people shifting to eating increased
amounts and proportions of saturated fats, sugar and refined
foods — often referred to as the “western diet” — most of which
are much more resource-intensive to produce.53
Global agribusiness has capitalised on rising incomes and urban
populations by promoting resource-intensive diets because they
are highly profitable. However they have adverse consequences
for global food security the global poor.
Less poverty has meant rising demand for meat and dairy-based
food. From 1950 to 2009 global consumption of meat and dairy
doubled, and is now on track to increase four-fold by 2050. This
rapid rise in demand has driven the use of increasingly resourceintensive farming methods such as animal feed-lotting. Now
approximately 35% of global grain harvest is fed to animals.54
Feeding cereals to animals to provide meat is highly inefficient.
It is estimated that it takes between three to six kilograms of
grain to produce one kilogram of meat.55 The United Nations
Environmental Programme (UNEP) estimates that even
accounting for the energy value of the meat produced, feeding
cereals to animals instead of people eating cereals directly
represents the annual calorie needs for more than 3.5 billion
people.56
The rise of over-consumption of resource-intensive foods
therefore reduces the accessibility of food for the global poor.
In 2008 the developed countries comprised 18% of the global
population, but consumed 39% of grain and 41% of animal
protein supplies. Competition for grain staples for animal feed
also contributes to price rises. With impoverished households
spending as much as 70% of their budget on food, even small
price rises for basic cereal crops have enormous consequences.57
The rise of resource-intensive diets is also exacerbating pressure
on the natural resources available for agriculture, and on global
fisheries. Rising demand has led to the adoption of increasingly
unsustainable intensive farming practises. For example the
UNEP points to the rapid rise of demand for meat as a key
driver of the clearance of intact forests in the tropics for either
growing animals for meat directly, or to grow grain crops to
supply intensive animal feedlot operations.58
By intensifying the use of land and water to supply resourceintensive diets, we are consuming the irreplaceable assets that
future generations will need, particularly given rising population.
The spread of resource-intensive diets is also contributing to
the global rise of obesity and associated chronic poor health
from diet-related diseases. Disturbingly obesity is also now
found in combination with micronutrient malnutrition – that is,
people are eating more calories than they need, but not getting
enough essential minerals and vitamins and other nutrients
for good health.59
The cost of addressing obesity-related health problems is
a growing burden for public health systems. In the US total
healthcare costs attributable to obesity are set to double every
decade and Australia faces a similar challenge.60 Productivity
losses are also significant; but least quantified and arguably
most important is the loss of individual quality of life.
With these trends set to continue, there is an urgent
need to shift populations onto sustainable and nutritious
diets. Lifting people out of poverty must continue, but
not at the cost of their personal wellbeing and future food
security through the promotion of resource-intensive and
unhealthy diets. We must reduce the global footprint of food
production, secure public health, and address the consumption
disparity between the affluent and poor.
FIGURE 6 — MAP OF THE GLOBAL CROPS DIVERTED INTO BIOFUELS AND ANIMAL FEED
16
SOURCE: JA Foley et al. Nature, 1-6 (2011) doi:10.1038/nature10452
WHAT ABOUT FISH?
GOVERNMENT RESPONSES
An extensive discussion of fisheries and aquaculture in
the context of global food security is outside the scope of
this policy document, but this in no way diminishes their
importance.
Some countries’ view of food has undertaken a quantum shift in
the last few years. The 2008 global food crisis, in which natural
disasters saw several major food exporters cease all export,
combined with the marked increase in food price speculation
and diversion of cereals to other demands such as biofuels,
led to rapid spikes in food prices that caused severe social
disruption and hunger.66
What is the state of our fisheries globally?
Seafood is the main source of animal protein for
approximately 1 billion people around the world. However,
over fishing, pollution, and loss of habitat have all caused
serious harm to the marine environment, and severely
depleted fish stocks. It is estimated that two thirds of the
world’s fishery stocks are below sustainable levels; yet
overfishing continues in half of them.61
Accelerating climate change is now one of the greatest
risks to global fish stocks. Marine scientists have warned
that we face the collapse of entire marine ecosystems
and unprecedented mass extinctions in our oceans unless
catastrophic climate change is stopped.62
HOW ARE AUSTRALIAN FISHERIES FARING?
Some of Australia’s fisheries historically have suffered
from over-fishing, but now our marine resources are
comparatively well-managed. There has been a focus
on rebuilding depleted stocks and implementing
sustainable catch limits. Recent work to create a network
of Commonwealth marine reserves is a significant major
step towards ensuring that we have viable future fisheries.
Climate change is a major threat to Australia’s marine
biodiversity and fisheries, and the effects are already being
observed. The expansion of the range of South Eastern
Australian sea urchin into Tasmanian waters due to warmer
waters has devastated giant kelp forests and hurt the local
rock lobster industry. The unusually warm ocean in 2011 of
the WA coast (dubbed the Ningaloo Nina heatwave) may
well have been caused by climate change. The Great Barrier
Reef is showing stress from rising ocean temperatures
and acidity.63
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
Both globally and in Australia, aquaculture is the fastest
growing fisheries sector.
Sustainable aquaculture has the potential to take
significant pressure off wild fish stocks and make a
valuable contribution to global food security. However
to do so, it must end its reliance on fish meal for food
which exacerbates over-fishing of wild stocks, by moving
to plant and algae-based foods. Ocean-based aquaculture
may need to move on land to control its water and waste
cycle, and control water temperature as climate change
takes hold.64
Whilst rare in Australia, small and medium scale inland
freshwater aquaculture is increasingly being combined with
agriculture with great success. For example fish can be
grown with rice, where the fish feed on plant material and
pests, and their waste provides nutrients for the rice crop.65
The crisis led some countries to radically rethink their approach
to food trading, particularly those heavily reliant on food imports
because they do not have the natural resources to be selfsufficient. These nations rapidly redefined food as an issue
of national security. As a result they too have been investing
through sovereign companies in arable land and water in other
countries to bolster their own food security.67 Such investments,
while understandable, threaten to distort global food trade and
demand, and negatively impact on local food security in the
countries where they are investing.
Other nations that do have the ability to be self-sufficient in food
production have been also reassessing their approach to food
security. The threat of climate change to local food production
and the realisation that economic policy settings have left
domestic agricultural systems struggling to survive has driven
a new focus on local food security. Responses have included
a renewed focus on strategies that ensure the right to food,
rebuilding the economic, social and environmental resilience
of local food systems, increased investment in agricultural
research and development, and explicit government support
for local procurement.68
The new phenomenon of viewing food as a matter of national
security may help bolster a renewed commitment to addressing
the unsustainability and inequities in our current food system.
It could also exacerbate them and increase serious conflict over
food and agricultural resources.
Some regions such as the Horn of Africa are already known
hotspots for conflict over land and water, exacerbated by the
impacts of climate change. Conflict between Ethiopia and Kenya
for water rights to Lake Turkana and the Omo River has been
a living example for the last decade.69 In recent times conflict
over precious pasture lands in Somalia has recently displaced
thousands.70
COMMUNITY RESPONSES
The many failures of the global food system, particularly
concerns about the adverse impacts of free trade agreements,
have driven a new level of global activism by small agricultural
producers, culminating in the formation of the Via Campesina
movement in 1993. With representatives in over 70 countries
and claiming to represent approximately 200 million small
farmers, Via Campesina is widely regarded as one of the world’s
most important international community movements.71
The focus of the Via Campesina is the achievement of food
sovereignty, defined as:
The peoples’ right to define their own policies and strategies for
sustainable production, distribution and consumption of food that
guarantee the right to food for the entire population.72
17
The movement for food sovereignty across the world is active in
enshrining this goal into national and international food policy
and law; and it has not just been confined to the global south.
Farmers from Europe, Canada and the US were involved in the
creation of Via Campesina, and food sovereignty organisations
are growing across the world, including in Australia. In 2010 the
Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) was formed. In
defining the relevance of food sovereignty to Australia, founding
member and National Coordinator for AFSA Nick Rose wrote:
Food Security is concerned with ensuring adequate access to
food for all, but it does not specify where food comes from, the
agricultural production values with which it is produced or the
social conditions of those producing it ... Food Sovereignty by
contrast has a great deal to say about the means. Fundamentally
it is about farmers, rural communities, individuals ... asserting
democratic control over their food systems.73
In 2012 AFSA conducted workshops across the country attended
by more than 600 people, culminating in the production of
the People’s Food Plan Working Paper. The working paper
affirms the view that Australians have a collective right to
food sovereignty, with an aim of achieving:
ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE
Too many current agricultural practices such as industrial
large-scale monocultures and intensive animal feed-lotting are
causing significant environmental damage. They are dangerously
reliant on non-renewable resources and ill-equipped to help
ameliorate or adapt to the impacts of climate change, instead
contributing as much as one third of greenhouse gas emissions.75
Moreover, the focus on industrial farming systems has not been
appropriate for Africa, Asia, and Latin and Central America,
and has exacerbated disparities in diet and consumption. As a
result we have not solved fundamental issues of global poverty,
gender inequity and hunger.
The complex interplay of biophysical, social and economic
challenges to the global food system demonstrates that a
holistic response is essential. We need to rapidly identify and
implement new approaches to farming that are sustainable,
productive and resilient in the face of existing challenges, and
the threat of climate change.
[A] fair, diverse and democratic food system for the benefit of
all Australians.74
Equally importantly such new techniques must remove, not
entrench, current inequities in food access and distribution.
They must ensure that the world’s rural poor and women in
particular, are empowered to fully and equitably participate in
the food system.
The food sovereignty movement is providing a cohesive
community voice for systemic change to our food system. In
many countries, including Australia, the movement is in front
of government in understanding that changing how we grow,
distribute, value and eat our food would radically change the
planet for the better.
In response to this need for systemic change a suite of alternative
farming practices are being identified and adopted because
they can achieve transformation of the food system in both
developed and developing nations. These farming methods
are now identified under the umbrella term “agroecology”, or
ecological agriculture.
Ecological agriculture was recognised as the convergence of
the disciplines of agronomy and ecology:
As a set of agricultural practices [it] seeks ways to enhance
agricultural systems by mimicking natural processes, thus
creating beneficial biological interactions and synergies among
the components of the [agricultural ecosystem]. It provides the
most favourable soil conditions for plant growth, particularly
by managing organic matter and by raising soil biotic activity.76
The core principles of ecological agriculture include:
• recycling nutrients and energy on the farm, and minimising
external inputs
• integrating crops and livestock
• diversifying species and genetic resources in agricultural
ecosystems over time and space
• focusing on interactions and productivity across the agricultural
system, rather than focusing on individual species
• increasing carbon stores in soil to improve fertility, water
retention and climate mitigation.77
18
Ecological agriculture is highly knowledge-intensive, based
on techniques that are generally not delivered top-down
but developed on the basis of farmers’ knowledge and
experimentation. It encourages seed saving and crop
diversification both in terms of species and breeding. Because it
recognises the fundamental importance of empowering farmers,
ecological agriculture has been adopted and driven by the food
sovereignty movement.78
Ecological agriculture has also been demonstrated to be highly
effective at addressing the inequities within the food system.
Investment in ecological agriculture involves direct investment
and empowerment of farmers, including addressing gender
inequity. It raises productivity, reduces rural poverty, improves
nutrition and turns farming into a net climate change positive.
The United Nations has recognised ecological agriculture as a
critical pathway to achieving global food security.79
Examples of successful ecological agriculture include the use
of agroforestry to restore thousands of acres desert in Malawi
to profitable and sustainable grazing lands;80 incorporating
ducks into rice farming in South Asia to provide a valuable
animal protein crop and as a natural pest control; “do nothing”
farming techniques in Thailand utilising effective soil microorganisms;81 and the adoption of mixed farming systems in
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Cambodia.82
Nor has the take-up of ecological agriculture been confined
to the developing world. In countries like Australia, while the
terms “agroecology” or ecological agriculture are rarely heard,
agricultural techniques that work with ecosystems are not – in
fact Australia has often been the site of pioneering sustainable
agricultural techniques. Practices such as conservation tilling,
integrated pest management, agroforestry, dry land cropping,
cell grazing and reseeding of native pasture, agricultural
landscape regeneration programs such as Soils for Life, and
permaculture are increasingly being adopted.
Globally, the widespread application of ecological agriculture has
been identified as essential to reverse the trend of contamination
and loss of soil and freshwater; conserve the earth’s dwindling
biodiversity including agricultural biodiversity; free agriculture
from its overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels; and to ensure
agriculture helps stop and adapts to climate change impacts. 83
THE WORLD AGRICULTURE REPORT & ECOLOGICAL
AGRICULTURE
In 2003 the state of the food system and the increasingly
urgent threat of climate change resulted in the World
Bank and the United Nations initiating an international
evaluation of the situation.
The evaluation brought together over 400 scientists
from every continent and a range of disciplines relevant
to agriculture and food. Over four years of work they
produced the International Assessment of Agricultural
Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development,
commonly known as the World Agriculture Report.84
The conclusion was the business as usual for agriculture was
not an option. The World Agriculture Report recommended
that across the global farming needed to adopt ecological
agriculture. For developed nations this would mean moving
away from large-scale industrial monocultures reliant on
fossil fuels and other inputs. For developing nations it would
mean transforming subsistence and low-yield farming. The
diagram below from the World Agriculture Report captures
the transformation required across farming systems.
FIGURE 7 — THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABLE AND PRODUCTIVE FARMING
19
SOURCE: IAASTD 2009
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS
Predictions that the world will need to produce 70% more food
by 2050 to meet demand has seen the resurgence of claims
that genetically engineered (GE) crops will be essential to meet
this challenge. It is argued that GE crops are our best hope of
creating varieties that can survive the impacts of climate change
and radically increase yields.
We should not outright reject any technology if it can be shown
to help overcome major obstacles to feeding the world in a
sustainable and ethical way. However to date claims that GE
crops are vital to food security do not hold up to scrutiny, and
in fact many aspects of pursuing GE crops actively undermine
the holistic transition to our agricultural practises we need to
make.85 Nor do they meet the public interest test, by privatising
the biodiversity of the global commons to the detriment of the
world’s poor and future generations.
This is largely because GE research remains focussed on trying
to improve yields in the existing few crops we rely on as grain
staples globally. It has been noted that such yield gains are
already approaching maximal limits; and reinforce a reliance on
low crop diversity and industrial farming methods, both of which
have been identified as a major barrier to future agricultural
sustainability.86
As noted by the World Agricultural Report, GE accounts for one
small aspect of a wide range of modern biotechnologies being
explored and developed with regard to agriculture and face a
wide range of complex barriers that are unlikely to disappear in
the near future.87 While controversy over the value of GE crops
continues, other biotechnological approaches combined with
conventional plant breeding techniques are already delivering
marked improvements.88
Increasingly evidence confirms that our focus should be on
implementing ecological agriculture, including the exploring the
wealth of edible plant diversity we have available to us. Many
indigenous plants already feature traits that allow them as to
thrive in difficult growing conditions that cause conventional
crops to fail.89
LOW YIELDS & WEEDS & PESTS
While many claims were made about what GE crops would
offer, current commercial varieties have focussed on improving
yield and lowering pesticide use. Currently three crops make up
the vast majority of commercially grown food GE varieties in
the world: soybeans, canola and corn. Two GE traits dominate
– herbicide resistance, pest resistance or a combination of
both traits.
20
The US has the most widespread adoption of GE, with GE crops
for corn, canola and soybeans dominating plantings. Recent
longitudinal studies have shown no appreciable increase in
yield compared to conventional farming techniques in Europe
for these crops, and rather than a decline, there has been an
increase in pesticide use in the US. Pesticide use has increased
because as feared, GE crops have created weeds and pest
species now resistant to most chemical controls.90
GE crops were hailed as the next “Green Revolution” for farmers
in the developing world, but they have not delivered. The cost
of the patented seeds and associated herbicides and the design
of GE crops to suit large monocultures have proved a poor fit
with the needs of small-scale growers who make up the bulk of
farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin and Central America.
Commercial GE crops are privately patented and their use is
accompanied by the prohibition of seed saving and farmer
experimentation, practises that remain the foundation of smallscale farmers.91 In contrast new crop varieties during the 1960s
push to end hunger were deployed with an explicit strategy of
public good and thus were free, and on-farm experimentation
was encouraged.92
PRIVATE PROFIT VS PUBLIC GOOD
Throughout their development and deployment the first
generation of GE crops have remained tremendously
controversial and divisive within communities. The heart of the
controversy is the private ownership and control of commercial
GE crops by large multinational companies.93
Through patents and rigid licenses GE companies have refused
to give access to their raw research or allow full testing of their
claims for their crop varieties. Such has been the restriction on
independent research it led Scientific American to editorialise
in 2009:
Scientists must ask corporations for permission before publishing
independent research on genetically modified crops. That
restriction must end.94
While the outcry at the time did lead to some easing of
restrictions on public research by the private GE companies,
the situation has not changed enough to allay concerns. With
GE crops for commercial use still being approved on the basis
of research by the GE companies themselves, public concerns
about the potential for long-term harm to human health and
the environment has not allayed. The concerted, multi-million
dollar lobbying efforts of companies like Monsanto to prevent
independent research of their crops and the labelling of GE
food in countries like the US has done nothing to convince the
public that GE crops are safe.
Emerging research indicating serious human and environmental
health impacts from glyphosate, the key herbicide used with
herbicide-resistant GE crops has again highlighted the lack of
proper independent research and transparency with regard to
95
the risks associated with GE crops.
FUTURE OF GE CROPS &
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
Less understood but of great significance is the negative
impact GE research and deployment has had on research and
development into alternative agricultural innovations, and
agricultural biodiversity. GE companies and proponents have
been very successful in securing public policy support and
investment, to the detriment of investment in alternatives.96
GE companies like Monsanto and Syngenta have aggressively
purchased other seed companies and now dominate the
commercial seed market globally, as well as the pesticide
market. This combination has seen a loss of agro-diversity
in crops world-wide, as well as an entrenchment of industrial
agricultural practices.97 It is therefore clear that GE research
led by private companies is a threat to identifying new crops
for food sustainability, not an asset.
There are signs that the lessons from the first generation of
GE crops have been heeded. New methods of genetically
manipulating plants are not necessarily relying on inserting
foreign DNA for example, and there is a growing focus on a
much greater variety of plant species and traits.98
For the next generation of GE research on agricultural crops to
be appropriate, it must be carried out by public institutions and
removed from private patents and commercial controls. There
must be full transparency to ensure that the value and risk of
new traits is properly evaluated before any new GE crops or
animals are released into the environment.
The damaging trend of GE crops reducing in-field agricultural
biodiversity, and reducing resources focussed on developing
alternative crops from the natural bounty of thousands of plant
varieties already available, must stop.
21
22
Chapter Two
WHERE DOES
AUSTRALIA
STAND?
23
AUSTRALIA’S FOOD SYSTEM
It is easy to conclude that the global food security predicament
is largely irrelevant to Australia. As a considerable net exporter
of food, many will reasonably conclude that we are feeding
ourselves and playing a small but admirable role in addressing
global hunger.
This is a dangerously inaccurate reading of Australia’s own
domestic food security. In fact Australia’s own food system
largely mirrors the challenges facing many other countries.
There are too many Australians struggling to afford and
access healthy food and too many overweight and obese. Our
farming workforce is declining and ageing, and our local food
manufacturing sector is under intense pressure as we import
more processed food than ever before.99
Extreme weather has always made a dramatic difference to our
agricultural production; for example in a drought year Australian
grain yields drop to around 25 million tonnes, compares to nearly
60 million tonnes in good years.100 Climate change is already
increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather
events in Australia.101
FIGURE 8 — AUSTRALIAN EXPORTS, DROUGHT vs NON-DROUGHT
In spite of these known challenges, Australia lags badly behind
other nations in developing a coherent and long-term national
food security strategy that prioritises Australians’ right to
food and community well-being through the sustainable local
production.
Instead, as exemplified by the recently released National Food
Plan, there is a ‘business as usual’ focus on maximising economic
returns from food export, leaving critical issues such as ensuring
access for all Australians to healthy and affordable food, keeping
farmers on the land and addressing land degradation largely
to the private sector.
It is particularly concerning that acknowledgement of the right
to food is absent from Australia’s public discourse, despite its
prominence in international human rights treaties that Australia
has ratified. Recently the United Nations Special Rapporteur
reported on food security in Canada, a country very similar to
Australia in terms of agricultural composition, the presence of
strongly disadvantaged Indigenous populations and a notable
gap between rich and poor. His report showed the need for the
right to food to be embedded in government strategies for the
food system in industrialised countries.102
The food system is complex and crosses over multiple traditional
portfolios including but not limited to environment, agriculture,
health, welfare, energy, climate change, transport and trade.
Because it has not been treated holistically in Australia, we
lack critical coordination across government, transparency
and the ability for independent expertise and the community
to adequately participate in setting and delivering Australia’s
food policy objectives.
Where other countries have recognised the need to increase
democratic participation and local ownership of the food
system, Australia has to date continued to let economic and
trade considerations dominate and be driven centrally with
minimal input. The National Food Plan development process was
dogged by complaints that it was not transparent or inclusive.103
The lack of holistic food policy coordination has also resulted
in the absence of critical data to inform key decisions at all
levels of government and the broader community. The last
national study on levels of food insecurity in the Australian
population took place in 2004; there are no comprehensive and
regularly updated national datasets at appropriate temporal or
geographic scales on soil and freshwater health; identification
and tracking of prime arable land; climate risk and adaptation;
food waste; or food environment indicators that affect access
to nutritious and affordable food.
AUSTRALIA INTERNATIONALLY
SOURCE: Courtesy of the Centre for Policy Development.
See cpd.org.au/farming-smarter-not-harder
24
As a wealthy nation we are well-placed to address the
shortcomings in our own food system and assist other nations
with less capacity to deal with theirs. However the approach
we take to the challenges facing our food system also shapes
our actions globally – if we think “business as usual” is going
to work for our own farmers, we impose that view in our trade
and aid dealings.
For example using our aid budget to support small-scale
agricultural producers, most of them women, is one of the
most potent steps Australia could take to bolster regional
food security.104 Tragically instead Labor and the Coalition are
committed to reducing or diverting Australia’s aid budget to
other uses.105
Internationally, Australia’s stance on global food price
speculation, rigid adherence to free trade liberalisation and
lack of understanding of new issues such as land-grabbing has
serious consequences for poorer nations as well as our own
farmers and food manufacturers.106
Australia’s influence globally will soon be significantly magnified,
as we will take the Chair and set the agenda of the G20 group
of nations in 2014. To date, the G20 has failed to address the
key global challenges to food security, instead persisting with
policies that have created a broken food system and benefit
the wealthiest nations.107 Australia will have an unprecedented
opportunity to turn this failure around.
FAILING TO KEEP
FARMERS ON THE LAND
FARMER NUMBERS DECLINING & AGEING
Because of a consistently strong performance in food export,
tied with a justifiable reputation for resilience and innovation,
Australian farmers are assumed to be doing well. This
complacency underpins the business-as-usual policy approach,
which places the focus on export earnings and minimal
government involvement in supporting agriculture.
However, the demography of Australian farmers tells a very
different story. In the last 30 years there has been a 40% decline
in the farming population, a loss of more than 100,000 farmers.
Those farmers remaining are ageing; an alarming 47% are aged
55 or more; and with just 13% aged under 35 there is a clear
succession crisis facing Australian farming.108
It has been observed that “in general, systematic research and
discussion on the succession and estate planning in Australia
is very limited, especially in the farming sector”.109 The limited
evidence available suggests that while the average farmer‘s
age is now 55, half or more have given little or no thought to
succession arrangements. Over half of farmers may not be
succeeded by the next generation. The situation facing most
farmers – especially smaller-scale operators, but by no means
those exclusively – is particularly acute. One submission to the
National Food Plan on behalf of “the family owned farm” points
to the severe demographic crisis facing this country’s farmers:
Our children see us working very hard, and they know the farm
struggles to make ends meet…Why would any child growing
up here see constant sacrifice and hardship as a great future?...
Are you aware of the seminar being run called, “Handing on the
Family Farm is Not Child Abuse?1100
The decline and ageing of Australia’s farming population has
been accompanied by an increase in farm size, as farmers have
tried to maximise efficiencies of scale to retain viability, often
referred to as the farm problem’.111
SOURCE: Courtesy of Tammi Jonas
Why has farming become such a difficult prospect in Australia?
A number of current challenges are explored below.
MARKET SETTINGS, FREE TRADE & LOCAL FOOD
Australian farmers’ terms of trade have been declining over the
last 40 years.112 By 2000, an Australian farmer had to produce
more than four times the volume of food to earn, in real terms,
just over half of what they earned nearly 50 years ago.113 Recent
research on farm viability Victoria showing that more than 70%
of family farms do not earn enough to support the family on
them, suggest that little has changed for the better.114
In part this is the result of the aforementioned “farmer problem”
– agricultural productivity has seen a significant rise in yields,
but food prices are largely inelastic, meaning a growing disparity
between yield growth and prices.115
Of particular note in Australia is the impact of having one of
the most concentrated supermarket sectors in the world on
food prices. Coles and Woolworths dominate, together sharing
around 60% of the market;116 in comparison in the US the biggest
food retailers including global giant Walmart together share a
mere 20% of the supermarket sector.117
The domination is such that it is both a duopoly and a duopsony
— that is a concentration of both selling and buying market
25
power in the same two companies.118 The serious issues with
Australia’s food system caused by the domination of the
supermarkets have been a consistent subject of concern
for many years, and the following series of issues has been
persistently highlighted.
The lack of diversity and competition in the market has seen
Australian farmers and food processers hamstrung as “price
takers”, forced to accept lower prices in order to secure
contracts, yet evidence suggests that Australians are paying
higher food prices that comparative nations.119
The supermarkets are also aggressively pursuing the
replacement of private label products with their own generic
brands, increasing their share of grocery profits and extending
their control over the food supply chain. This tactic, combined
with forcing private label brands to offer more retail discounts
and absorb any costs have been particularly damaging to local
food manufacturers.120
It has also significantly increased the use of imported food, as
Coles and Woolworths seek cheaper resources and products
from overseas, undercutting local production. Despite an
overwhelming desire for clear information, confusing labelling
laws make it very hard for Australians to choose locally grown
and made produce.
Coles & Woolworths
control
~60%
Poor food labelling also stops Australians from being able to
AUS
identify and reward particular standards
they are willing to
of the market
pay more for such as free range and organic
produce; or avoid
unsustainable ingredients such as palm oil.121
At the same time Coles and Woolworths have pursued the
creeping acquisition of smaller rivals, and accumulated potential
supermarket retail sites while leaving
them
vacant or signing
Tesco
& Sainsbury
control
restrictive covenants
with site owners
to prevent competitors
Coles & Woolworths
control 122 This has accelerated the centralisation of
from establishing.
Australia’s
food retail market, undermining
of the local
marketfood economies
AUS
where thereofare
shorter supply chains, typified by local small
the market
UK farmers.
businesses selling produce from the region’s
48%
~60%
FIGURE 9 — AUSTRALIAN SUPERMARKET SHARE
Tesco & Sainsbury
control
48%
of the market
Walmart & Kroger
control
USA
20%
of the market
UK
Walmart & Kroger
control
USA
26
20%
AUS
of the market
Coles & Woolworths
control
~60%
of the market
CONCENTRATION COMPARED TO USA & UK
The persistent allegations of the use of predatory pricing to
drive down supplier prices and overcome local competition
have recently spurred a new investigation by the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).123
The damaging effect of supermarket power concentration
and frustrations with the scope and application of Australian
competition law has now reached a peak and there is a clear
case for structural and policy reform. In the meantime it is
Australia’s food producers and manufacturers that are balanced
on the knife edge of fatally low prices and a lack of access to
alternative market paths to reach Australian shoppers.
While food manufacturing employs approximately 200,000
people, of which around half are located in rural and regional
areas, the closure over recent years of food manufacturers,
particularly those focussed on using local produce is a rising
cause for concern. The reality of this story can be traced through
the annual publication of Australian Food Statistics by the
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Since 2004
Australia has been a net food importer, and the trade deficit
has increased every year. Processed fruit and vegetables have
been hardest hit by sharply rising amounts of imports, and
it is reflected in the loss of associated food manufacturing
businesses.124
Trade settings are not sufficiently balanced. Australia, with its
unique combination of one of the lowest rates of government
support for farmers and food manufacturing coupled with a rigid
adherence to free trade seems dangerously naïve compared
to the robust and unapologetic actions taken by other nations
to protect their local food systems. Oour farmers and food
manufacturers have to compete against countries with vastly
cheaper labour and more lax environmental standards and
working conditions. It is farcical to pretend this represents a
level playing field.
Trade agreements are also pursued with unacceptable levels of
secrecy, making it virtually impossible for civil society to engage
and consider the benefits and costs from particular proposed
agreements. For example Australia is currently engaged in
negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
(TPPA), a regional free trade agreement that would encompass
as at least 9 countries around the Asia-Pacific Rim. There are
grave concerns that the TPPA will further undermine local food
security in participating nations, yet the only real detail on what
is being discussed is coming from leaked texts.125
The National Food Plan is symptomatic of this attitude. While
enthusiastically touting the potential for Australia to significantly
increase the value of food exports it fundamentally fails to
address the crisis in the domestic market that is pushing many
farmers to the wall. It is, as Christine Milne first remarked: “A
recipe for feeding Australians cheap imported food”.
CLIMATE CHANGE ALREADY AFFECTING FARMERS
Repeated droughts, floods and bushfires in the last decade in
particular have taken their toll on the resilience and wellbeing
of Australia’s farming communities.126 The under-resourcing of
mental health services have become a key issue in rural and
regional Australia, reflecting the psychological toll of surviving
extreme weather events and adverse financial circumstances.
In some regions of Australia, permanent shifts in rainfall and
seasons have already taken hold. These shifts are complicating
and compounding existing challenges, and in some areas
tragically may well be the last straw for traditional farming.
The wheat belt of Western Australia is one such area now in the
grip of a permanent drying, and experience in this region has
demonstrated some of the breadth of possible consequences
and responses to climate change.127
For some of the wheat belt climate adaptation to maintain
and increase productivity has been possible and critical to the
ongoing viability of farms, and not necessarily reliant on radical
new technologies. In other areas the extent of the loss of rainfall
has shown the limits to adaptation, and some farms are now
in deep financial crisis. The relative financial stability and skills
and knowledge base of each farm has also been a critical factor
in the ability to adapt to the changing conditions.128
However, it must be remembered that the climate change
impacts already in effect relate to a moderately warmed
world. Unless there are dramatic interventions to reduce our
greenhouse gas emissions soon, the world is on track to warm
by as much as 5.3˚C, with catastrophic consequences.129
distorted market add new layers of complexity to this equation.
With less predictable weather and seasons, a greater frequency
of natural disasters, and the concentration of supermarket
power seeing some farmers suddenly losing contracts or having
prices reduced, is it still possible to simply assume unsustainable
farm debt is always the result of poor farming?
Of equal importance, it has long been recognised that healthy,
biodiverse landscapes and ecosystems services are essential
public goods, yet the price we pay for food does not reflect the
cost of maintaining them. The common result is two adverse
outcomes – either farmers are forced to use poor farming
practices which undermine the health of their farm; or they are
forced to maintain the landscape themselves at their own cost.
Funding for community Landcare and more recently linking this
regional-scale Natural Resource Management (NRM) has been
a very welcome development, particularly as they have included
greater recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
cultural knowledge and land management practices. However
NRM programs will not be enough by themselves because they
don’t address market pressures on farming practice, and still
rely on significant volunteer effort and levels of co-investment
from farmers to ensure sustainable farming outcomes.
There is a persistent argument that it if we want farmers to
maintain ecosystem services and our agricultural landscapes,
then they need to receive some return for this effort. Other
countries, developed and developing, have such payments in
place or are actively exploring them. The Food and Agricultural
Organisation recently instigated a three year study into the
efficacy of payments for ecosystem services,131 and the most
well-known subsidy for landscape management, the EU’s
Common Agricultural Policy is being overhauled with the aim
of removing perverse outcomes and ensuring it specifically
funds maintenance of ecosystem services on-farm.132
For Australia, financial assistance to support resilient and
sustainable farming needs to consider three elements:
• crisis funding to respond to unforseen financial loss due to
market failure and extreme weather
SOURCE: Courtesy of the Australian Defence Force
The potential range of impacts from climate change, and the
fact that climate-smart farming practices are part of the solution
to lowering greenhouse gas emissions demands a fundamental
rethink of the kinds of government intervention and assistance
provided for Australian farmers.
GOVERNMENT FINANCIALLY ASSISTANCE
All of the issues above have contributed to rising levels of
unsustainable debt for some farmers, making them particularly
vulnerable to external shocks and unable to recover. This in
turn has exacerbated the number and rate of farmers walking
off the land.130
Typically, it has been accepted that farms in financial trouble
were the result largely of poor practices, and the selling of such
farms to more efficient farmers was appropriate. However,
climate change impacts and the downward pressure from a
• transitional funding to assist farmers to change agricultural
practices in areas already impacted by and unprepared for
permanent climatic shifts
• long-term financial payments or similar in return for ecosystem
services and landscape maintenance.
Recent reforms to drought assistance are a welcome move
towards a more proactive approach to supporting farmers
through difficult times, but leave many unresolved issues.
Consideration is also needed of whether there needs to be
incentives or assistance to attract new farmers, particularly
given the crisis in succession, or whether market reform and
better assistance to adapt in the face of climate change will
be sufficient.
FINITE INPUTS DEPENDENCY COSTING FARMERS
Australia’s food system is heavily reliant on fossil fuels to deliver
agricultural production, storage, processing and distribution.
Our dependence on oil-powered mechanised agriculture and a
27
vast network of trucking to distribute food are readily apparent.
Less appreciated is the considerable challenge posed by our
heavy reliance on artificial fertilisers and pesticides derived from
oil. A typical western family of four through food consumption
and delivery to them “eats” 175 barrels of oil a year.133 Of this,
as much as one-third can be artificial fertilisers and pesticides.
With over half of the oil we consumer imported, Australia
is particularly vulnerable to oil price increases and scarcity.
Increased oil scarcity and prices will flow through into higher
food prices in the short term. In the medium to long-term
it will pose a severe challenge to agricultural systems such
as Australia’s that are heavily reliant on artificial fertilizers.
Fossil fuel-derived inputs are up to 50% of total input costs
for Australian farmers.134
Similarly, our near-total dependence on fossil-fuel powered food
processing and transportation systems mean we are particularly
vulnerable to adverse impacts from sustained oil price spikes
if we do not begin to implement alternative approaches now.
Helping farmers replace fossil fuel needs will not only increase
was the Australian Natural Land and Water Resources Audit,
published in 2002. It found that of Australia’s nearly 460
million hectares of agricultural land nearly 40 million hectares
suffered from unsustainable erosion; over 20 million hectares
was severely degraded as the result of acid soils; more than
3 million hectares was affected by salinity and a further 100
million hectares were characterised by sodic soils (soils that
contain excessive quantities of sodium, which impedes water
penetration and plant growth and causes waterlogging and
erosion).138
Despite this evidence of extensive degradation and the breach
of limits to available environmental resources, government
monitoring and intervention has fallen short of what is required.139
HEALTHY SOILS, HEALTHY PEOPLE
We all understand that fresh food gives our bodies the
vitamins and minerals we need for good health. However
what we are at risk of forgetting is that the source of those
micronutrients in our food is the soil it is grown in.
Therefore as soil health has declined, so has the variety and
amounts of micronutrients in our food.
FIGURE 10 - THE DECLINE OF MINERAL CONTENT
IN SELECTED VEGETABLES
Restoring degraded land and soil therefore not only ensures
sustainable landscapes, it is vital to our health.
farm resilience, it will significantly reduce the contribution of
agriculture to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to
renewable energy is particularly appealing, as it means farmers
can be energy self-sufficient, or host larger renewable energy
projects that then provide an additional source of income.
With much of our soil lacking it, phosphorous is another key
finite input for Australian farming that must be addressed
through more efficient use and active substitution.135
SOURCE: Marler JB, Wallin JR. (2006) Human Health, the Nutritional Quality of
Harvested Food and Sustainable Farming Systems, Nutrition Security Institute.
However,
Australian farmers have not ignored the situation.
PROTECTING & RESTORING AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES In addition
to minerals, a biologically alive soil requires organic content. Carbon in
The most arid inhabited continent covered largely in fragile,
ancient and poor soils, Australia has suffered severe land
degradation and freshwater depletion since European
colonisation.136
Significant loss of native vegetation and biodiversity, overallocation of water resources, and agricultural techniques that
have exacerbated topsoil loss and degradation have left a legacy
that governments have only begun to seriously address in the
past 30 years.137
The last national assessment of the state of our soil and water
of the
level
of ofhistoric
degradation
toin a
ourThe
soil isrealisation
critically important
to the
survival
the microbial
food web thatled
exists
living
The organicof
content
of the soil is decomposition
of organic
matter and
into the
thesoil.
formation
the Landcare
movement in
the 1980s
soil.
Decomposing
organic
material of
increases
carbon content
to the soil.
This is acthe
successful
creation
the regional
Natural
Resource
complished by the decomposing material entering the soil as a tea where bacteria and
Management
model.
The
result
has
been
a
widespread
adoption
fungi render it into a soil acid gel. These gels are responsible for holding moisture conofinecological
agriculture
methods
Australian
farmers.
tent
the soil. They
can hold up farming
to 98% of their
weightby
as added
moisture.
They allow
airThese
to entermethods
the soil while
from destructive
andmajority
erosion.
fit protecting
well withthe
thesoil
strong
desire of rainfall
the vast
of our farmers to act as stewards of our agricultural landscapes,
The decline in the nutritional quality of food has been linked to production methfor sustainability
and
now, and
for
odsmanaging
that result inthem
soil degradation
or the “mining”
of prosperity
soil fertility. Globally,
the Green
140
Revolution
of the past 50 years has resulted in the use of large amounts of petroleum
future generations.
based, synthetic fertilizers to increase productivity. To increase yields, a vast over-application of inorganic, synthetic nitrogen has been applied to farmland. This over-application of labile, inorganic nitrogen stimulated the soil microbes and resulted in the
destruction of the natural balance of carbon reserves in the soil.
28
With the destruction of moisture holding carbon, soils have lost the ability to grow
healthy plants and to hold moisture. Along with losing the ability to hold nutrients,
the bio-availability of minerals for plant growth has been significantly decreased as a
result of the accelerated withdrawal of minerals from the soil without corresponding
The uptake of sustainable farming methods has increased
over recent years as a response to external shocks such as
prolonged drought, coupled with the realisation that they
increase productivity and reduce input costs, thus improving
farm viability and resilience.141
now climate change adds a new dimension to the problem.
Now, Australia must also confront the implications of climate
change for our agricultural landscapes. We are considered to be
one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate
change. The magnitude of the impact to Australia’s agriculture
sector from climate change will vary depending on by how
many degrees the world warms, but the overall effect will be
the potential loss of currently productive areas and an increase
in the extent of agricultural land regularly impacted upon by
adverse weather conditions, with an overall marked decrease
in productivity.142 With Australian agriculture contributing
approximately 17% of our greenhouse gas emissions143 the
need for climate change risk assessment and adaptation is
particularly acute.144
It has long been recognised that Australia’s biosecurity system
needs to be overhauled to meet the challenges of the 21st
century. Two comprehensive reviews of Australia’s biosecurity
arrangements have been undertaken in the past 15 years. Both
recommended that biosecurity decision-making, oversight and
technical capability should be independent of government.147
This recommendation has wide cross-sectoral support. With
moves underway to replace the century-old Quarantine
Act with new legislation, the time is now to implement this
sensible reform.
The impacts of a warming world include a rise in threats from
new pests and diseases, as changed conditions allow them to
spread further and adapt to live in places that previously they
have not been able to survive.
Historically favouring minimal public intervention, Australia
lags behind many other nations where active governments
are assisting farmers at all scales to prepare for the impacts
of climate change, and fostering the landscape-scale adoption
of sustainable agriculture to systemically address land
degradation.145 We cannot possibly expect our farmers, rightly
renowned as they are for their innovation and adaptability, to
take on this enormous new challenge alone.
SOURCE: Courtesy of Steve Roberts
AGRICULTURAL PUBLIC INVESTMENT
Government investment in agricultural research and
development (R&D) has declined in real terms for the last 20
years.148
Another key area of concern with regard to climate change
impacts is biosecurity. Australia is fortunate due to its
island status to be relatively free of pests and diseases that
significantly impact agriculture in other nations. The internal
isolation of states such as Tasmania and Western Australia
has further stopped some pest and disease incursions from
affecting the whole country. It has meant that our farmers
can access export markets with their clean produce, and use
less chemicals to control pests and diseases, benefiting us
all. Stopping the incursion of exotic pests and diseases is also
critical to conserving our unique environment and wildlife.146
Generally, Australia has had a strong biosecurity system, but it
has become more vulnerable because of the significant increase
in the movement of people and goods around the world, and
There is a strong link between investment in agricultural R&D
and productivity gains, including a significant time lag between
the investment and flow-on productivity improvements.
Evidence shows that Australian agriculture’s productivity gains
over the last twenty years were founded on significant public
investment in research and development in the twenty years
preceding them.
Many farmers have relied on productivity gains to buffer against
low prices and poor years as the result of adverse conditions.
Given strong historical productivity gains have paradoxically
helped reduce prices, it could be assumed that slowing
productivity gains is not necessarily a problem. However given
that agricultural R&D funding has been declining in real terms
for some time, we have yet to see the negative consequences
of this fully play out for Australian farming.149
Of particular concern is that much of Australia’s historic
productivity gains have occurred in landscapes that are suffering
from habitat loss, biodiversity decline and degradation of soil
health and water quality. Therefore as a nation we remain in
deficit to the environment in delivering our past agricultural
29
success, and the decline in agricultural R&D means we have
squandered valuable years of research we need now to help
shift to truly sustainable farming systems.
The decline in agricultural R&D means we are also behind
in considering future land use changes as a result of climate
change, and in identifying and trialling potential new crops
suited to changed conditions and Australian soils. This includes
research and development of potential native foods which could
improve agricultural resilience. Comprehensive investigation of
Australia’s native foods would harness the cultural knowledge
of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and provide
greater economic opportunities for farming in northern and
arid Australia in particular.150
Agricultural R&D and its implementation are more critical than
ever to reduce land and water degradation, minimise the food
system’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and ensure
sustainable productivity. However the decline in government
investment means we now face a significant time deficit that
must be addressed.
While Australia’s Research Development Corporations (RDC)
model of agricultural R&D is rightly well-regarded, they are
divided into commodity groups, and the key cross-sectoral
public research body, Land and Water Australia, was stupidly
axed in 2009. This has been followed by the recent nonsensical
decision to stop funding to the National Centre for Climate
Change Adaptation. As Andrew Campbell, former Executive
Director of Land and Water Australia recently wrote:
The big challenges facing Australian agriculture, land use
planning, and natural resource management — such as climate,
energy, water, irrigation, biodiversity, biosecurity, soils, carbon,
pests, weeds, land use planning and social issues — are not
commodity-specific. They are cross-sectoral, demanding
integrated approaches within and across geographic scales, and
between government, industry and community.151
Declining agricultural R&D and extension has other negative
flow-on effects. It reduces the prominence and desirability of
agricultural careers, including farming, which in turn reduces our
skilled agricultural workforce and next generation of farmers.
Building the production of food and fibre into the national
curriculum for primary and secondary education and ensuring
there is a link through to thriving tertiary opportunities and
careers is essential for ensuring Australia has the knowledge
base we need to transform our food system.152
In the meantime, key research questions are not being
addressed, such as how to pay for the cost of maintaining
ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. This is a glaring
deficiency despite it being accepted that the price of food
does not reflect the true cost of production and as a result has
negative environmental and social consequences.
COMPETING LAND & WATER USES
THREATEN AGRICULTURAL ASSETS
While nearly 60% of Australia is farmed, 40% is only suitable
for extensive livestock grazing. Around 14% of our agricultural
land has sufficiently reliable rainfall to allow cropping and
only 6% is of prime quality and thus farmed intensively for
horticulture and dairying. A significant proportion of that
intensively cultivated land is found near our cities.
It is estimated that peri-urban agriculture comprises 3% of
total farmed land, but accounts for 25% of the gross value of
agricultural production for the five eastern mainland states. For
example the south-eastern agricultural region of Queensland
comprises 2% of the state’s land area but produces 18% of
agricultural economic activity. These intensive agricultural
areas on Australia’s urban fringe are the hub of fresh fruit and
vegetable growing, and thus critical to regional food security.153
Australia’s richly productive prime agricultural land faces
multiple threats. Urban encroachment is seeing a significant
amount of intensively cultivated land lost to subdivision and
redevelopment; we have lost 89 million hectares of arable land
to urban sprawl since 1989.154
The centralisation of Australia’s food supply chain and
distribution through the supermarket duopoly has played a role
in undermining the valuation and viability of highly productive,
typically smaller market-garden style farms on the fringes
of our cities. As paths to market have diminished and price
competition from the supermarkets increased, so the ability of
small farms on the urban fringe to remain economically viable
has been threatened, and often the result is pressure to claim
prime farm land for new urban development.155
SOURCE: Courtesy of CIMMYT
Along with declining public investment in landscape protection
and sustainable agriculture, public extension services have also
been cut. This has left many farmers without access to holistic
advice on sustainable solutions to on-farm challenges. It has
also made it harder for researchers to collaborate with farmers,
and slowed the rate of adoption of innovative techniques.
30
Now, expanded coal mining and the coal seam gas rush are
putting agricultural cropping heartlands such as the Darling
Downs and Liverpool Plains under increased pressure. The
renewed threats of mining expansion are particularly concerning
given they have the potential to impact on water tables and
contaminate priceless groundwater reserves, as well as decrease
available agricultural land.156
Despite these threats and the productive importance of these
few regions, the protection of prime agricultural land has not
systemically been given priority through local planning schemes
or state government regulations. Government regulation at all
levels give mining preferential access and use of agricultural
land and water resources.
Nor has the marked increase in Australia’s prime agricultural
land and water from overseas sovereign interests sparked an
understanding of their real value from Australian governments.
The struggle for Australian farmers to remain viable and the
global land grab has led to the paradox of Australian farmers
struggling to stay on the land even as there is a surge in interest
from foreign investors.
As Rochford notes:
If Australian farmland is more attractive to foreign interests than
to local farmers, this contributes to concerns about agricultural
viability in Australia.157
TOO MANY HUNGRY, TOO MANY
OVERWEIGHT, TOO MUCH WASTE
AUSTRALIA’S HIDDEN FOOD POVERTY
The top line assessment that Australia is food secure hides
a much more complex situation requiring urgent attention.
Food insecurity in Australia occurs both in terms of people
THE PROMISE AND IMPORTANCE OF URBAN AGRICULTURE
Australia is one of the most highly urbanised countries in the
world, with more than 75% of our population living in just 17
major cities.158
Like many other nations, our cities are built on some of the
best agricultural land we have, and over time this precious
resource has been lost to urban expansion and development.
This has eroded access to local fresh food, and across Australia
we have lost nearly 90 million hectares of urban agricultural
land since the 1980s.159
Unfortunately we have yet to learn and halt the decline. Sydney’s
current metropolitan plan proposes developing more than 50%
of Sydney’s remaining fresh produce farms, yet they contribute
significantly to the local economy as well as to local food
security and healthy diets.160
Australia’s geography means that we rely on a highly centralised
transport system to deliver food “just in time”, making our
cities particularly vulnerable to disruptions in food supply
during major disasters,161 as the experience of Queensland
demonstrated during the 2011 catastrophic floods.162
In other countries with the same challenges, urban agriculture
is experiencing a new resurgence. Governments are protecting
and restoring urban agriculture to increase urban food security,
ensure everyday access to fresh and healthy food, and prepare
for climate change impacts.
For example across Northern America, major cities have
rewritten their planning schemes and provided incentives to
protect urban agricultural land, remove concrete and convert
empty public space for community and commercial agriculture,
and foster rooftop gardens. Regulations to support the local sale
of food are being introduced and farmers markets including
mobile markets to reach into areas with low food access are
being established.163
In Australia, the community is ahead of governments in
recognising the potential and importance of urban agriculture,
with community gardens, new farmers markets and rooftop
gardening beginning to thrive. Communities are pushing back
against the loss of market gardens and agricultural land to
more development.
What is now needed is the systematic reform of government
policy to protect urban agricultural land, and support community
and commercial urban farming so that it can flourish.
31
being unable to afford any food at certain times, and from diets
regularly deficient in necessary nutrition. A recent ANU poll of
5,000 households found that 13% of households were unable
to afford to eat healthily.164
food deserts, as it has helped undermine local food systems that
better assisted people to readily access fresh food. With 86% of
Australians living in cities, urban and peri-urban agriculture is
particularly important for ensuring local access to fresh food.174
Research shows that for particularly vulnerable groups in
Australia – the unemployed, people with chronic illnesses or
disabilities, sole parents, newly settled refugees and Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples – food insecurity is far more
prevalent, persistent and frequent. Relief agencies now also
report that the fastest growing demand for emergency food
relief is from low-income working households.165
Many cities in other highly urbanised nations are prioritising
the provision of just and sustainable food, including explicit
support for urban agriculture. Australia has to date lagged
behind in the recognising the critical importance and potential
for urban agriculture. There is an urgent need to prioritise and
support food-sensitive urban planning.175
Australia’s understanding of the causes, trends and dimensions
to food insecurity remains frustratingly lacking, as there has
not been a concerted effort by government to create a national
picture since the National Health Survey conducted in 2004;
and there is no ongoing resources dedicated to tracking food
insecurity nationally.
What is known is that the causes of food insecurity in Australia
intersect with other forms of disadvantage, but the most
prevalent factor is inadequate income. There is no doubt that
income support payments are too low and therefore directly
cause food insecurity.166 Families including single parent families
dependent on social security would have to spend as much as
a third of their income on food to eat a nutritionally adequate
diet meeting Australian health guidelines, reinforcing that food
insecurity is as much about nutritional adequacy as it is about
getting enough calories.167
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in remote
Australia are disproportionately affected by food insecurity
and diet-related illness. Healthy food is very expensive, often
difficult to get, and traditional food gathering and hunting has
been disrupted.168 Instead of governments implementing actions
to deliver their right to food, Australia’s first people have been
subjected to a loss of rights and dignity with the implementation
of income management for those receiving social security, which
has not discernibly improved food security or diet.169
Local and state governments are at the forefront of recognising
that food insecurity is a leading cause of poor health and an
unacceptable symptom of poverty in a country that is now one
of the richest in the world.170 This has refocused attention on
the production and distribution of fresh food in Australia, and
some research is now suggesting that we already do not produce
enough fruit and vegetables to provide every Australian with a
nutritionally appropriate diet.171
While there has not been systematic mapping done here as there
has for example in the US, there is a growing body of evidence
showing that “food deserts” exist in Australia – locations where
there is no ready access to fresh, healthy and affordable food,
but often an abundance of calorie dense, nutritionally poor
options such as fast food.
32
Because of lack of access to affordable healthy food, food
insecurity and nutrition deficiencies can occur hand in hand
with obesity.172 Poor housing stock without that does not include
proper infrastructure for cooking and storing food is another
significant barrier to people being able to make healthier and
cheaper diet choices, as is a lack of cooking and nutrition skills.173
The centralisation of food distribution systems contributes to
RISE & RISE OF DIET-RELATED ILL HEALTH
Simultaneously we must come to grips with what many health
experts describe as an obesity epidemic. Currently, 62% of
Australian adults and more than a quarter of children are
overweight or obese. This is projected to rise to over 75% of
Australian adults being overweight or obese by 2025 if current
trends are not arrested. Already diet-related diseases cost our
health system $8.3 billion.176
As noted earlier, globally affluence and urban living are strongly
associated with over-consumption of intensively produced
high-calorie food; and Australia is one of the most affluent and
urbanised countries in the world. There is no single cause of
obesity, but there is agreement we have created “obesogenic”
environments, that is, we live, work and play in spaces that
encourage inactivity and overeating.177
Current approaches to tackling obesity based on consumer
education are inadequate and urgent government intervention is
required. The World Health Organisation has urged developed
nations in particular to utilise fiscal policy to encourage the
consumption of healthy food and to better reflect the health
costs of energy dense, nutrient deficient food and drink (i.e.
what is commonly known as “junk food”).178
Using price signals to differentiate healthy and junk food may
well have merit but it is a complex area that needs careful
exploration. For example evidence from efforts to introduce
various forms of junk food taxes in other countries has shown
that the inelastic demand for food and the fact that people
on lower incomes are more likely to suffer from diet-related
diseases can lead to such taxes simply punishing the poor.179
Declining knowledge and skills about healthy food choices and
cooking are also increasingly coming into focus with regard to
diet-related illness. The marketing of highly addictive junk food,
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson with NW Tasmania’s Produce to the People, who deliver surplus farm produce to those who need it most.
particularly to children to inspire life-long brand loyalty has also
become an area of acute concern in Australia.180
Obesogenic environments emphasise “convenience” foods that
are typically energy dense and low in nutrition, both in the form
of takeaways and highly processed options from supermarkets
that require as little preparation as heating.
Despite our love of cooking shows, in a nation that works some
of the longest hours in the developed world, cooking is now often
seen as a chore rather than a pleasure or worthwhile activity. A
dislike of cooking is associated with less healthy food choices;
while conversely having the knowledge, skills and appreciation
of cooking is shown to lead to more healthy diets.181
The presence of rising food insecurity, nutritional inadequacy
and obesity highlight how critical it is to consider the food
system as a whole even in wealthy nations like Australia.
FOOD WASTE
Food waste occurs at all points in the food chain from harvest to
processing and distribution, to retail and consumption. There is
a lack of comprehensive national information on food waste at
all points along the food chain in Australia except for household
consumption.
For the EU, the food industry from paddock to retail accounts
for 39% of food waste, households 42% and the catering
industry the remainder (19%).182 While Australia lacks sufficient
comprehensive data to know the exact figures, the similarities of
our food chain to countries like the US and UK strongly suggests
that sources of food waste here will be similar.
Consumer food waste studies in Australia show that we waste
up to 20% of the food we buy. An average Australian family
is throwing out over $1000 worth of food a year; totalled up
nationally every year we are throwing away four million tonnes
of food worth a staggering $8 billion.183 The vast majority of this
waste is avoidable and caused by buying and cooking too much
food, confusion over date labelling and a loss of basic home
economic skills such as planning menus and shopping to a list,
knowing how to cook and proper food storage.
Both the EU and the US have also found that there is significant
avoidable food waste in other parts of the food chain.
An estimated 20% to 40% of fresh fruit and vegetables are
rejected on the basis of failure to meet aesthetic standards
(such as shape, or the presence of a small blemish) before
produce reaches retail outlets, and the cost of this waste is
largely borne by the farmer. Crops are sometimes also wasted
because prices drop, meaning it is not economically viable for
a farmer to harvest and sell their produce.184
Food waste does not just cost consumers and farmers; it
represents a big cost to the environment and a waste of energy
resources and other inputs used to generate it. In an arid country
like Australia for example, it means an unacceptable waste
of precious water resources. It is also a significant source of
greenhouse gas emissions, as rotting food waste releases
methane, which is more than 20 times more potent than carbon
dioxide.
With food waste making up approximately 40% of the waste
stream from Australian households, it comprises over a third
of waste deposited in landfills and thus is a key driver of the
need for more waste disposal sites.185
Ensuring that our children have the knowledge and appreciation
of where our food comes from and the resources it takes to
produce it is one part of the long-term equation of reducing
food waste, and why it is so important that food literacy is
included in the national curriculum.186
In the meantime there is an urgent need to better understand
the sources and drivers of food waste throughout the Australian
food chain. Food waste is an unacceptable loss of resources
such as water in the world’s most arid inhabited continent,
and a loss to a community where too many still cannot access
sufficient healthy food.
33
34
Chapter Three
THE GREENS’
RESPONSE:
A SUSTAINABLE,
HEALTHY & FAIR
FOOD SYSTEM
35
Like all complex issues, the state of our food system and the
challenges facing it can feel daunting; but there is reason to
be positive.
As a nation we have the resources and capacity to create a
food system that is the envy of the world. Many of our farmers,
communities, businesses, researchers and are already actively
committed to transforming how and what we grow and distribute
for food in Australia, and how we contribute to achieving the
right to food for everyone on the planet.
The Greens have the vision and political will to transform our
food system to one that is healthy, prosperous, fair, sustainable
and Australian.
Our priorities and policies initiatives are described below, and
costings are provided in Table 2.
REFOCUSING GOVERNMENT PRIORITIES
Many of the problems facing Australia’s food system reflect
misplaced government priorities and neglect.
The Greens understand that government must take the lead in
re-prioritising the way we approach our food system so that
people and the environment are at its heart. Our goal is to create
and implement government policy based on the right to food,
and ensure it is delivered by a food system that is “sustainable,
healthy, prosperous, and fair”.187
GETTING GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES RIGHT
We can no longer afford for our food system to be managed
without coordination across the relevant portfolios the affect it.
The Greens strongly believe that we must govern our
food system based on delivering the right to food, and the
interconnectedness of ecosystem health, human nutrition and
farming viability. We accept the recommendations of the Food
Alliance188 and will:
Encourage the creation of local and regional food councils
to maximise community participation in their food system.
Australia should adopt the approach of countries such as
Canada that have created regional and state food councils to
implement participatory food policy at these scales.
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP ROLE ON
THE RIGHT TO FOOD
As chair of the G20 in 2014 the Greens recognise that Australia
has an unprecedented opportunity to push for reform of the
global food system, and we believe that Australia must make
delivering on the right to food a key priority. 189 Specifically,
Australia must drive an agenda to:
• regulate the international agricultural commodities market
to address financial speculation
• push for an end to the subsidisation and allocation of grain
quotas for biofuels
• restore food reserves, paying particular attention to regional
needs as a result of climate and other vulnerabilities
• promote accelerated investment including aid in small-scale
agriculture to build local food security and help the most
vulnerable communities prepare for climate change.
The Greens believe that Australia should set an example by
lifting our aid contribution to 0.7% of Gross National Income.
We must also prioritise aid to build small-scale ecological
agriculture in developing nations, and target its knowledge and
technical exchanges similarly.
South-East Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in terms
of climate change impacts on local food security, so Australia’s
investment would be a significant contribution towards
addressing global hunger. It will also boost efforts to address
inequity particularly if Australia ensures it specifically targets
empowering women farmers.
Establish a National Food Policy Ministerial Board involving the
critical portfolios overseeing our food system, chaired by the
Minister for Health and reporting to the Prime Minister. The
Board’s first task will be to produce a whole of government
National Food and Nutrition Strategy. Other responsibilities
will be the identification and collection of key national data
and information to underpin food policy; and resolving ongoing
policy tensions between sustainability, health and economic
objectives affecting the food system as they arise.
Create an independent Food Advisory Council to provide expert
advice to government on how to achieve the key objective of a
healthy, sustainable and prosperous food system. It will comprise
of experts in key aspects of food policy and representatives from
environmental, agricultural, public health and consumer groups.
36
Appoint an independent Food Commissioner who will hold
the government to account for policies and actions related to
the National Food Strategy through regular assessment and
reporting. The position will have the power to commission
new research and audits of key aspects of the food system (for
example waste in the food supply chain) to measure progress
towards agreed objectives and inform decision-making.
Greens Senators Rachel Siewert and Penny Wright visiting Papua New Guinea.
KEEPING FARMERS ON THE LAND
Without farmers there is no food. The trend of declining and
ageing farmers must be reversed.
PROVIDING ESSENTIAL INFORMATION,
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Australia is lacking crucial data with which to identify, track
and respond to the key challenges and opportunities facing
our food system. This must be urgently addressed through
collation of existing disparate data and collection of new data
to fill major gaps.
At the same time Australia must reverse the decline in
public investment in agricultural research and development.
Particularly missing is cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral
research and development to tackle the complexity of climate
change mitigation and adaptation, boosting and sustaining
productivity, strengthening rural communities and economies,
and reconnecting local agricultural production and distribution
to local food security.
The Greens will increase Commonwealth funding for agriculture
research and development by 7% per year to reverse the decline
in public investment and provide adequate funding for present
and future needs.
• identifying and addressing gaps in existing knowledge with
regard to appropriate sustainable and productive farming
practices for Australia, including identification of future crops
and land use changes to respond to climate change scenarios
• identification of appropriate mechanisms for paying farmers
for the restoration and maintenance of ecosystem services
based on identified bioregional environmental stewardship
standards
• producing an Australian version of the US’ Food Environment
Atlas, including developing and monitoring national measures
on the cost and accessibility of healthy and unhealthy food,
food insecurity, and community nutrition characteristics190
• adapting agricultural practices and transport needs for
transitioning off fossil fuels and other finite input limitations
(e.g. phosphorous)
• expanding collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples to identify, trial and develop potential native
crops and foods, including essential work to protect cultural
intellectual property
• instigating long term, bioregional scale monitoring of landscape
health based on the work of the National Land and Water
Resources Audit.
We will replace the axed Land and Water Australia with a new
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, and boost the role of the
Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. The
loss of Land and Water Australia is regarded as one of the
most short-sighted recent decisions by government as it cost
us a dedicated research body focussed on building agricultural
sustainability.
As a nation we must recognise the need for a systemic and
cooperative approach for all farmers, policy makers and
scientific agencies to work together to restore and maintain our
agricultural landscapes. This cannot happen without significant
public investment in sustainable agricultural research and
development.
Further, this research capacity must be broadened to encompass
social and economic considerations, for example linking health
and nutrition policy to farming practices, and it must be able
to model and provide responses based on the best and worst
case climate change scenarios. In the first instance the Greens
will utilise the increased funding to fill critical national data
gaps. These include:
• mapping prime agricultural land (which includes not just soil
and water considerations but also available infrastructure and
proximity to markets) and provide this as an essential data
layer scaled to inform local planning schemes. This mapping
will take into account current food production needs and the
implications of future climate change scenarios with regard
to the availability and value of agricultural land
• national climate change risk mapping, mitigation and adaptation
information for agriculture at appropriate geographic and
temporal scales to allow farmers to practically respond
SOURCE: Courtesy of CIMMYT
The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation
will continue with a complementary role to the new Centre
for Sustainable Agriculture, with its additional extra funding
directed towards assisting emerging rural industries, increasing
value-adding in the food supply chain and rebuilding local and
regional food systems.
In accordance with the Productivity Commissions’
recommendations regarding public funding for agricultural
research, Commonwealth funding to the single commoditybased RDCs will be halved over 10 years, and instead an
uncapped contribution of 20c in each dollar committed by
RDCs from levies towards research and development will be
made.191 This will help redirect public funding to research that
benefits all agricultural sectors such as national climate change
risk mapping and the other examples listed above. Commoditybased RDCs will still benefit from the overall 7% increase, and
can attract further research funds.
37
REBUILDING PUBLIC AGRICULTURAL
EXTENSION SERVICES
Over the last 20 years public agricultural extension services
have been cut alongside public investment in research and
development, and it is now essential to reverse that trend.
Public agriculture extension has several essential benefits. It
connects researchers and farmers directly, which is critical to
ensuring that local knowledge is harnessed, and the results are
practical and specific to on-ground realities that vary across
landscapes and regions.
Extension also increases the rate of adoption of sustainable
and profitable farming methods. Given the pressing task of
addressing land degradation and preparing for climate change,
it has never been more vital to facilitate a faster and more
systemic adoption of ecological agricultural methods.
The Greens will fund national network of 180 agricultural
extension officers. These will be based in the Natural
Resource Management (NRM) regions, and their work in each
region will be determined by a regional steering committee
with representatives from the NRM region, Landcare, local
agricultural industry groups and research institutions.
small businesses, and consumers
• place a temporary hold on expansion by Coles and Woolworths,
while the ACCC carries out an ex-post assessment to on their
decisions relating to the grocery market. This assessment
will require the ACCC to go back and review their decisions
relating to the grocery market with hindsight and appreciation
of the current realities of the market. Ex-post assessments
are carried out by competition agencies overseas but the
ACCC has never carried one out
• prevent the supermarket duopoly from purchasing agricultural
land, to ensure they aren’t able to completely control the
whole supply chain. The major supermarkets already manage
or own a large amount of the supply chain. They maintain retail
premises, warehousing and logistics and sell products using
their branding. In the liquor sector they own wine processing
and brewing companies. It is imperative that they are not
allowed to extend their supply chain dominance further
• increase the resources and effectiveness of Australia’s
competition watchdog the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC). It’s imperative that the ACCC
has sufficient resources to pursue allegations and evidence
of market abuse
• extend Australian Consumer Law framework dealing with
unfair contract terms to business to business agreements
involving small businesses and farmers. This will provide
farmers and suppliers dealing with the supermarkets with
more protections and promote fairer business dealings. Many
of the complaints about supermarket behaviour have referred
to surprise change in pricing and supply contracts.
LEVERAGING GOVERNMENT
BUYING POWER
FAIR MARKET PLACE FOR FARMERS
STOPPING MARKET POWER ABUSE
For our farmers to stay on the land, it has to be profitable. With
a food retail and wholesale marketplace dominated by just two
companies, and a relentless expectation that they produce more
and more food for less cost, it is little wonder that so many
Australian farmers, local food manufacturers and small shops
are struggling. Without changes to Australia’s competition law,
the concentration of market power will continue and pressure
on local food production will worsen.
The Greens will:
38
• strengthen competition law to ensure companies are unable
to abuse their market power. We will amend the Consumer
Act to grant the ACCC divesture powers to split up companies
who have too much market power, bringing Australia in line
with the UK and the US. We will amend section 46 of the
Act to ensure companies can’t use their market power to sell
goods at below value to the detriment of farmers, suppliers,
One practical way that government can help local food producers
is through its own buying power. Government departments and
services funding by government grants spend considerable
public funds on food. Prioritising the purchase of Australian
grown and manufactured with government funds would provide
a reliable and fair market for our farmers and food processers.
Often focussed on sustainability criteria as well as local supply,
similar programs in Europe have been shown to significantly
increase support for domestic food producers, but they can be
overly complex and require careful planning.
The Greens will conduct a feasibility study into the introduction
of a federal government local procurement policy.
FROM FREE TRADE TO FAIR TRADE
The Greens also believe that Australia must rethink its
approach to free trade. Free trade agreements (FTA) such as
the Australia–US FTA have not provided the promised benefits
to rural Australia.192 New agreements are negotiated in secret,
and have all have failed to address the fact that Australian
farmers and food manufacturers are being forced to compete
against other nations with much cheaper labour and little or
no working condition and environmental standards.
Photo: An open cut coal mine eats into farmland in the Hunter Valley.
The Greens recently secured greater scrutiny of free trade
agreements, with the government now required to release the
priorities and objectives of any proposed agreements, including
independent analysis of the anticipated costs and benefits.
The Greens will campaign for Australia to shift from free
trade to fair trade, by ensuring that all new trade agreements
contain mechanisms that reflect the cost to Australian farmers
of meeting the highest environmental and labour standards
compared to trading partners.
SWITCHING FARMERS TO
RENEWABLE ENERGY
HIGH-ENERGY USE FARMING OPERATION GRANTS
Energy self-sufficiency is one way farmers can reduce input
costs and increase resilience. The more farmers can generate
their own energy, the more protected they will be from rising
input costs.
Increasing energy efficiency is also critical. Some forms of
farming and food storage on-farm necessarily involve using a
lot of energy, and we rely on them to do so because the energy
is used to maximise food freshness and safety, and to maximise
water use efficiency.
If we want to ensure Australia is always able to produce enough
fresh food to feed itself it makes sense to build resilience through
our whole food supply system by encouraging increased energy
efficiency and switching to renewable energy. The Clean
Technology Grants, introduced as a result of the Clean Energy
Package and funded by the price on greenhouse gas pollution,
have already made hundreds of millions of dollars available
to food manufacturer to increase their energy efficiency and
install renewable energy.
However these grants were not extended to energy intensive
farmers. The Greens will provide grants to energy-intensive
farms to help them upgrade their equipment for maximum
energy efficiency, and to install renewable energy to run intensive
operations. Eligible farmers will be able to demonstrate either:
• reliance on high energy intensity from the use of facilities and
equipment to ensure food hygiene and freshness such as cold
stores, produce heating and cooling, packing and processing
and sterilization processes
• reliance on best practice management irrigation systems
(generally utilizing high pressure to maximize water
efficiency). Given the importance of pressurized irrigation
systems in regions reliant on groundwater resources, irrigators
in such areas will get priority, however surface water irrigators
will also be eligible.
RENEWABLE ENERGY INCOME GENERATION
For some farmers, hosting larger renewable energy installations
that feed into the grid is also an option. For example, farmers
who already host wind farms are benefitting from payments
for the use of their land and this provides an additional source
of income.
However for more farmers to be able to host larger scale
renewable energy projects, barriers to their development must
be removed. At the moment the national electricity grid and
network providers are stalling the installation of “distributed”
renewable energy generation. Additionally, it’s crucial that
Australia increases its renewable energy target to provide
commercial incentives for an accelerated rate of renewable
energy installation.
The Australian Greens are committed to raising Australia’s
renewable energy target to 90% by 2030. We will also create
the Energy Savings Agency, which will be tasked with removing
39
barriers to the installation of more distributed renewable energy
generation across the country, benefitting rural and regional
communities, including farmers, in particular.
PROTECTING OUR LAND, WATER & BIODIVERSITY
If we are to protect and restore our irreplaceable soil, water and
biodiversity, a major new effort must begin now.
UNCONVENTIONAL GAS & COAL MINING ON
AGRICULTURAL LAND
The Greens will resource the national mapping of all prime
agricultural land at an appropriate scale to inform local and
state planning. We will also prioritise the conservation of prime
agricultural land as part of the National Urban Policy, and only
fund state and local infrastructure and development requests
that complies with this directive.
The Greens support the farmers fighting for the right to protect
their land and water from shale, tight and coal seam gas. We
believe that the push to aggressively develop these new fossil
fuel industries on the cusp of the full transition to renewable
energy is tragically short-sighted and driven by greed for shortterm profits.
STRIKING A BALANCE ON FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF LAND
It is our food security and rural communities who will pay the
price and unconventional gas, along with massive coal mine
expansions, must be stopped.
The Greens will:
Thanks to the strong community campaign and the work of the
Greens and Independents, the impact of coal and coal seam
gas on Australia’s water resources must now be considered
before federal environmental approval can be given – meaning
water can be protected from coal and coal seam gas under
our national environment laws. What’s more, advocacy by the
Greens ensured that these new responsibilities must remain
in the hands of the federal Environment Minister, rather than
being able to be delegated to the state governments who have
clearly demonstrated they cannot be trusted to protect our
land and our water.
This was a hard won first step, but much more needs to urgently
be done.
The Greens will:
• reject new shale, tight and coal seam gas developments and
coal mines
• legislate the right of landowners to refuse miners access to
their land
• extend the new national protection for water to shale gas,
tight gas, and underground coal gasification
• apply the national water trigger to major coal and coal seam
gas projects approved by the Environment Minister just before
this new requirement was introduced.
STOPPING ARABLE LAND LOSS TO URBAN SPRAWL
In order to conserve our best agricultural land, we need to know
where it is at a scale that can directly inform local planning
schemes and decisions. Currently data on Australia’s prime
agricultural land is inconsistent and updating is ad hoc.
40
While the federal government does not control state and local
planning, it can exercise considerable influence and set a clear
national goal of conserving prime agricultural land, and provide
resources to assist. It can also provide incentives to sustainable
urban planning that avoids further city sprawl.
There is also a need to ensure that local mapping of our best
arable land takes into account factors beyond soil quality
and water availability, such as access to infrastructure and
transport. This is particularly important for the full value of
good agricultural land located on the urban fringe to be fully
understood.
For Australia to be able to make informed and strategic decisions
about our agricultural land and water resources, we must
accurately track and consider each bid by foreign investors,
particularly sovereign nations, to own it.
• create a live register of foreign ownership of agricultural land
and water assets to continuously track overseas purchases
• lower the threshold from $248 million to $5 million for
consideration of the national interest by the Foreign Investment
Review Board for purchases of agricultural land and water by
a foreign private entity. This will include cumulative purchases
by the same entity under the $5 million threshold
• legislate a mandatory national interest test to be applied
by the Foreign Investment Review board for purchases of
agricultural land and water resources
• prohibit the purchase of agricultural land and water by wholly
owned subsidiaries of foreign governments.
REWARDING ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP
For the Greens, a central goal of increasing research and
development and rebuilding public extension services is to
drive a rapid uptake of regenerative and sustainable agricultural
practices.
We must empower farmers with knowledge and assistance to
restore degraded land and water resources, and adapt their
farming techniques to ensure they are sustainable, resilient in
the face of climate change, and profitable into the long-term.
However research, development and extension alone is not
enough. If we want to ensure we have prosperous farmers and
sustainable landscapes but don’t want to pay more for food,
other forms of government and market intervention must be
identified to rectify the significant cost imbalances.
The Greens already have a strong track record in recognising
the need to reward farmers’ environmental stewardship,
negotiating $1.7 billion for the Biodiversity Fund and the Carbon
Farming Initiative, both of which financially reward farmers for
sustainable practices, including specific funding to support
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land managers.193
As Australia’s first Advocate for Soils, Michael Jeffrey, stated
on his appointment:
Farmers and landowners are the key carers of our soils and country;
they should be recognised not just for their food production but as
stewards of our landscape and if they make improvements… that
is something we as citizens should jointly financially support.194
It is time to move to a nation-wide system of payments for
farmers, linked to clear bioregional environmental stewardship
standards. The Greens will fund research to identify appropriate
mechanisms for paying farmers for the restoration and
maintenance of ecosystem services.
STRENGTHENING OUR BIOSECURITY SYSTEM
As an island nation, Australia is incredibly fortunate to be free
of many pests and diseases that cause untold damage to human
health, agriculture and the environment in other countries.
Now, climate change and the large increase in the movement
of people and goods around the world are creating serious
challenges for our biosecurity. At the same time we are facing
a looming shortage of highly qualified plant and animal pest
and disease professionals.
It is time to prepare Australia for the increasing challenges to
our biosecurity this century.
The Australian Greens will:
• create a National Biosecurity Commission, a decision-making
panel of eminent biosecurity experts charged with making
the key decisions to best protect Australia from new pests
and diseases
• create a National Biosecurity Authority, a statutory,
independent and expertise-based organisation tasked with
the day to day management of Australia’s national biosecurity
system and advising the Biosecurity Commission
• provide the resources necessary to ensure that the new
Biosecurity Authority has the technical capability it will
require to perform its functions and support the Biosecurity
Commission.
The National Biosecurity Commission will comprise seven
members who will be selected on the basis of their proven
expertise in natural sciences related to risks of pests and
diseases in plants, animals and humans; risk assessment and
management; ecology; agricultural and food production; and
economic assessments. It will be responsible for undertaking
Biosecurity Import Risk Analyses, with technical assistance
from the Biosecurity Authority. The Biosecurity Commission
will also provide expert advice on biosecurity policy generally.
The National Biosecurity Authority will incorporate the
Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service and the other
key divisions of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Forestry currently engaged in biosecurity matters. Additionally
it will receive increased resourcing to ensure that it can recruit
the necessary expertise to boost national capacity across the
board, but particularly in relation to environmental biosecurity
matters, which are currently critically under-resourced.
The National Biosecurity Authority’s core function will be to
administer Australia’s biosecurity legislation.
Photo: A varroa mite on a bee nymph. Australia is the only country free of varroa mites. SOURCE: Courtesy of Gilles San Martin.
41
REBUILDING LOCAL FOOD ECONOMIES
More than ever before Australians want to be able to buy
food from local growers, frustrated by the lack of choice and
unethical behaviour offered by the supermarket duopoly. At
the same time increasingly disenfranchised by the market
concentration, farmers and local processers are also actively
seeking alternative paths to sell direct to the community.
Meanwhile, experts in public health and the right to food
have identified rebuilding local food systems, particularly
targeting “food deserts” as a key tool for addressing food
insecurity and obesity in Australia; and agricultural experts
have recognised that supporting local and regional food
systems is essential to providing sustainable incomes for
farmers and conserve prime agricultural land particularly
on the urban fringe.
The Greens strongly believe that we must rebuild local
food systems. We will provide funding for infrastructure
and other support that allows farmers and communities
to collaborate and create local food distribution pathways
and markets. Such infrastructure includes farmer’s markets;
community supported agriculture and food box schemes;
mobile farmer’s markets that take fresh food directly into
communities lacking access; and regional food hubs, where
farmers can market, package, value-add and distribute their
produce directly to local commercial scale customers such
as health institutions, restaurants, universities, hospitality
and tourism sector businesses, and direct to the public.
In the US, the Obama Administration introduced the ‘Know
Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ program that provides
targeted funding to rebuild local and regional food systems.
The program has shown that rebuilding local food economies
expands markets for farmers, provides them with a greater
share of the retail price of food, creates jobs and increases
community access to healthy food. It has also been shown
to be an effective way to help empower Indigenous and
other disadvantaged communities take control of their own
food security and local food economy.195
The Greens will fund local infrastructure to reconnect
communities with their farmers. Such grants can be used
to create regional food hubs; start up farmer’s markets
and food box schemes; establish farmers’ cooperatives.
They will kick-start innovative solutions to help farmers
reach new customers including institutions such as health
and aged care centres, education providers, restaurant
franchises and tourism businesses.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=S
TELPRDC5090409 (use pic of regional food hub on page
11 to illustrate box)]
42
PUTTING GOOD FOOD
ON EVERY TABLE
Every Australian has the right to enough healthy, affordable food.
INCOME SUPPORT PAYMENTS FOR FOOD
With Newstart payments set at least $130 below the poverty
line, it is a fact that Australia’s social security payments are
now so low they virtually guarantee hunger and unhealthy
diets. It is inhumane and irrelevant to offer people on income
support financial counselling, or forcibly quarantine part of their
payments through income management, when they simply
are not provided with enough money to buy an adequate and
nutritious diet.
The Greens will:
• increase Newstart and Youth Allowance by $50 per week to
provide a fairer level of income support for people reliant on
social security
• improve indexation models that will help maintain the value
of an increase into the future
• make a supplementary payment of $40 per week for single
parents on Newstart with children under 16. Combined with
the rise in Newstart this will provide a $90 a week increase
in support for single parents on Newstart
• reform the income-free test for single parents on Newstart
so the income they can keep is the same as single parents
receiving parenting payments
• end the failed, expensive and punitive income management
regime.
These measures would see single parents receive up to $180
per fortnight in additional support, as well as being able to earn
more from paid work.
INCREASING HEALTHY EMERGENCY FOOD RELIEF
At the same time as Australia’s most vulnerable are struggling to
afford and access fresh healthy food we know that thousands of
tonnes of perfectly good fruit and vegetables is going to waste.
Organisations like Second Bite nationally and local groups like
Produce to the People in Tasmania have shown that it’s possible
to rescue and distribute fresh food that would otherwise be
wasted to people experiencing food poverty, with great success.
There is also a need for research to identify suitable financial
mechanisms such as tax offsets to reward farmers and
wholesalers who donate crops that would otherwise go to
waste due to gluts or contract difficulties.
The tragic fact is that demand for emergency food relief,
particularly fresh fruit and vegetables is currently far outstripping
supply – and thousands of tonnes of food that could fill this
demand is still being wasted.
The Greens will increase funding for food emergency relief
organisations that specialise in fresh food rescue and
distribution; and provide funding for research into financial
mechanisms to avert avoidable post-harvest food waste
HEALTHY EATING SKILLS FOR LIFE
Knowing how to choose, prepare, cook and store nutritious food
has become an endangered life skill. The absence of nutritional
knowledge and food preparation skills hampers people from
eating healthily, contributes to the excessive consumption of
unhealthy food and food waste.
We need to foster a culture of knowledge and pleasure in
growing, choosing and cooking healthy food. To do so we must
teach our children food literacy – ensuring they appreciate where
their food comes from and why eating well is important, and
have the life skills to grow, budget, cook and store healthy food.
Additionally we must help adults who have lost or missed out
on this knowledge also gain these essential skills for a better
quality of life.
The Greens will:
• ensure that origins of our food and fibre are embedded in the
National curriculum for primary and secondary education;
and fund up to 800 new school kitchen garden projects,
prioritising funding for schools in low socio-economic areas
• offer national grants for adult nutrition education programs,
targeting staff training for welfare agencies that provide food
relief, and their clients
• fund the production of an Australian version of the US’ Food
Environment Atlas, including developing and monitoring
national measures on the cost and accessibility of healthy
and unhealthy food, food insecurity, and community nutrition
characteristics.
MUTING THE SIREN CALL OF JUNK FOOD
There is no doubt that self-regulation of the food industry
with regard to unhealthy food has failed. There is a rising and
consistent view from health experts that junk food must now
be treated similarly to tobacco, and regulated as a public health
”bad” that is a significant contributor to mortality and chronic
ill-health in our society.
43
In accordance with these calls, the Australian National
Preventative Health Agency and the Obesity Policy Coalition
are supporting several research projects that consider the
effectiveness and appropriateness of taxation and other
mechanisms for better regulating junk food and making healthy
food cheaper.196
The Greens will:
• ban junk food advertising during children’s television, on
websites aimed at children, and via text message. The ban
will cover free to air TV, and pay TV channels dedicated
to children. We have campaigned alongside public health
experts for this crucial action as the Greens understand the
evidence that junk food is deliberately targeted at children
to hook them for life
• support research into regulatory measures such as junk food
taxes to assess whether they are effective and equitable.
TRUTH IN FOOD LABELLING
Accurate food labelling is important to allow Australians to
have clear and accessible information on the many factors
people want to know about their food. It’s essential for helping
people identify the nutritional value of their food, for knowing
where it was grown and manufactured, and for having a clear
picture of sustainability and welfare issues, and for being able
to choose to avoid controversial aspects such as genetically
modified ingredients.
The Greens have long championed food labelling reform. Over
the last decade in parliament we have introduced legislation to
label palm oil and genetically modified ingredients, to provide
a simple front of pack nutrition labelling system such as the
traffic light method, and to reform country of origin labelling.
Time after time Labor and the Coalition have refused to support
these reforms, despite strong public campaigns and support
from experts.
We have no intention of giving up. This year we introduced a
new set of reforms to fix country of origin labelling for food,
which has garnered wide support from organisations such as
CHOICE and farmers groups.
Recent reforms announced by government to provide a star
rating on food nutrition, very similar to a traffic light system to
help people easily identify healthy food shows that persistence
pays off.
The Greens will:
• reform Country of Origin labelling to make it easy to identify
food grown and manufactured in Australia and prohibit the
confusing array of ‘qualified’ claims such as ‘made from local
and imported ingredients’
• introduce mandatory labelling of palm oil and close the
loopholes to ensure that all GMO ingredients in food are
mandatorily listed
44
• working with groups such as Humane Choice, introduce
consistent national standard definitions of ‘free range’ for
eggs, poultry and pigs, to remove the confusion and misuse
of current voluntary standards
• support the introduction clear front of pack nutrition labelling
such as the new star rating that will assist people to easily
identify healthy and unhealthy food choices.
SAVINGS FROM FOOD WASTE ACTION
Wasting food costs us all a lot of money. The average Australian
household could save up to $1,000 by preventing food waste.
We also know that food gets wasted along the supply chain. For
example it might be rejected for sale because it doesn’t meet
aesthetic standards for sale even though it’s fine to eat. Every
bit of food thrown away means we’re also wasting the water,
nutrients and fuel that went into growing it. Food waste is also
a significant source of greenhouse gas pollution.
At the same time, too many Australians can’t afford to buy
fresh food they need for a healthy diet.
To help reduce avoidable food waste the Greens will:
• introduce a national food waste campaign to help us all learn
how to waste less. We will model it on the highly successful
Love Food, Hate Waste campaign run in the UK, which raises
community awareness on how to prevent food waste, as
well as working with retailers local authorities, businesses,
community and campaign groups
• review and simplify food date labelling to remove confusion
and stop food being thrown out when it’s still safe to eat.
Research shows that food date labelling can be very confusing,
particularly as some labels are meant for in-store use only.
This confusion leads people to throw out a significant amount
of perfectly good food because they think it’s no longer safe
to eat. Experience from overseas shows that simplifying food
date labels can help save a significant amount of good food
• rescue “ugly fruit and veg” by working with food retailers
to relax cosmetic standards that cause unnecessary waste,
including a community education campaign. “Ugly fruit and
veg” is produce that has a small blemish or is oddly shaped,
but perfectly good to eat. Current supermarket cosmetic
standards dictate an unreasonable level of perfection for
our fruit and vegetables, and as a result a lot goes to waste.
Recently UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s relaxed their
cosmetic standards for fruit and vegetables and this has been
embraced by the British public
• fund an analysis of avoidable fresh food waste in Australia’s
food supply chain to identify key areas where waste can be
avoided or reduced
• increase funding for emergency food relief agencies that
rescue fresh food, so that they can better meet demand from
those going hungry for fresh food; provide adult food literacy
education and investigate appropriate reimbursement for
farmers for crops that otherwise go to waste due to gluts or
market collapses.
REFERENCES
1
Brown, L 2013, Full planet, empty plates: the new geopolitics of food scarcity, Worldwatch Institute.
Pollan, M 2006, The Omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals, Penguin Press.
3
FAO 2012, The State of food insecurity in the world - http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/
4
FAO 2009, How to feed the world in 2050 - http://www.fao.org/wsfs/forum2050/en/
5
De Schutter, O 2011, The Problem of hunger and the right to food, Lecture to the John Hopkins Centre for a Liveable Future - http://tinyurl.com/
lpm8oft
6
UNEP, 2012 The Critical role of global food consumption patterns in achieving sustainable food systems and food for all - http://tinyurl.com/
d92aoeb
7
WWF 2012, Living planet report - http://tinyurl.com/cjxv9vg
8
De Schutter, O 2011, The Problem of hunger and the right to food, Lecture to the John Hopkins Centre for a Liveable Future - http://tinyurl.com/
lpm8oft
9
IFPRI 2009, Climate change: impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation - http://tinyurl.com/ydygzyu
10
FAO 2003, Trade reform and food security - http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4671e/y4671e06.htm
11
Pimentel, D 2006, ‘Soil Erosion: A Food and Environmental Threat’, Environment, Development and Sustainability vol. 8 119 – 137 - http://
tinyurl.com/kz3xplh
12
Time 2012, What if the world’s soil runs out? Available from: http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/
13
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, Ecosystems and human well-being: wetlands and water - http://www.millenniumassessment.org/
documents/document.358.aspx.pdf
14
FAO 2013, Hot issues: water scarcity, Available from -http://www.fao.org/nr/water/issues/scarcity.html
15
Oxfam 2011, Growing a better future - http://tinyurl.com/3zfydde
16
FAO 2004, What is agrodiversity? - http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5609e/y5609e02.htm
17
FAO 2010, Biodiversity for food and agriculture - http://tinyurl.com/lbmjguh
18
Ibid
19
The Guardian 2013, Bees and neonicotinoids ban q&a, Available from - http://tinyurl.com/cvle4sh
20
IFPRI 2009, Climate change: impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation - http://tinyurl.com/ydygzyu
21
Brown, L 2013, Full planet, empty plates: the new geopolitics of food scarcity, Worldwatch Institute.
22
Cribb, J 2010, The Coming famine, CSIRO Publishing.
23
IEA 2012, World energy outlook - http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
24
Smith, P., et al 2007, Agriculture: climate change 2007: mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - http://tinyurl.com/23atq33
25
American Scientist 2010, Does peak phosphorous loom?, Available from- http://tinyurl.com/76m282h
26
UN Women 2012, Rural women and the millennium development goals - http://tinyurl.com/m2s3pcc
27
Oxfam 2013, Getting big results from small-scale agriculture - http://tinyurl.com/mtkdp6l
28
FAO 2011 – Women: key to food security - http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am719e/am719e00.pdf
29
Ibid
30
UN World Food Program USA 2013 – Emergency response - http://usa.wfp.org/about/emergency-response
31
Murphy, S 2009, Free trade in agriculture: a bad idea whose time is done - http://tinyurl.com/87wlyfu
32
Hawkes, S & Plahe JG 2010, The WTO’s agreement on agriculture and the right to food in developing countries, Department of Management
Working Paper Series, Monash University, Melbourne.
33
De Schutter, O 2011, The World trade organisation and the post-global food crisis agenda - http://tinyurl.com/6vexjh9
34
Murphy, S 2009, Free trade in agriculture: a bad idea whose time is done - http://tinyurl.com/87wlyfu
35
Oxfam 2013, Behind the brands - https://www.oxfam.org.au/grow/behind-the-brands/
36
Oxfam 2011, Growing a better future - http://tinyurl.com/3zfydde
37
Growcom 2011, Food security issues for the Australian horticulture industry – www.growcom.com.au
38
Hawkes, S & Plahe JG 2010, The WTO’s agreement on agriculture and the right to food in developing countries, Department of Management
Working Paper Series, Monash University, Melbourne.
39
Brown, L 2013, Full planet, empty plates: the new geopolitics of food scarcity, Worldwatch Institute.
40
Ibid
41
The Independent 2012, The Real hunger games: how banks gamble on food prices – and the poor lose out, Available from - http://tinyurl.
com/7yekz2c
42
Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy 2013, Corporate land grabs reveal a hidden agenda: controlling the water - http://tinyurl.com/7yekz2c
2
43
Wired 2012, Banks consider quitting food speculation due to role in global hunger - http://tinyurl.com/ntpu2n4
Oxfam 2012, Our land our lives: time out on the global land rush - http://tinyurl.com/oaejx32
45
Australia Parliament Hansard 2011, Foreign investment review board national interest test, testimony to the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport
References Committee Hearing, Canberra - http://tinyurl.com/m3ebsh9
46
Australia Parliament 2013, Foreign investment review board national interest test, Senate Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee
Report - http://tinyurl.com/kr2zr28
44
45
47
Milne, C 2010, Food security plan essential for the national interest - http://tinyurl.com/lpjwdj7
Worldwatch Institute 2013, Global food prices continue to rise - http://tinyurl.com/qzzyeo3
49
International Business Times 2013, US risks losing status as world’s top exporter of corn due to the ethanol mandate - http://tinyurl.com/kkmlnjb
50
DW 2010, Land grabs, biofuel demand raise global food-security risk - http://tinyurl.com/luc9hjs
51
UNEP 2012 The Critical role of global food consumption patterns in achieving sustainable food systems and food for all - http://tinyurl.com/
d92aoeb
52
Ibid
48
53
Ibid
Worldwatch Institute 2013, Grain harvest sets record, but supplies still tight - http://tinyurl.com/m8vox5e
55
UNEP, 2012 The Critical role of global food consumption patterns in achieving sustainable food systems and food for all - http://tinyurl.com/
d92aoeb
56
UNEP 2009, The Environment’s role in averting future food crises - http://tinyurl.com/avmmmy
57
FAO 2011, State of food insecurity in the world - http://tinyurl.com/3nnsgm4
58
UNEP, 2012 The Critical role of global food consumption patterns in achieving sustainable food systems and food for all - http://tinyurl.com/
d92aoeb
59
FAO 2013, The state of food and agriculture - http://tinyurl.com/mnkozv6
54
60
61
Ibid
Eadie, L and Hoisington C 2011, – Stocking up: securing our marine economy, Centre for Policy Development - http://tinyurl.com/ls6g5p3
62
Ibid
Ibid
64
Worldwatch Institute 2013, Will farmed fish feed the world? - http://tinyurl.com/kl4l4l
65
Ibid
66
Brown, L 2013, Full planet, empty plates: the new geopolitics of food scarcity, Worldwatch Institute.
67
Ibid
68
See Country Missions by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food - http://tinyurl.com/ldmwa9t
69
Circle of Blue 2011, Water conflict: violence erupts along ethiopia-kenya water-stressed border - http://tinyurl.com/kpobc75
70
IRIN AFRICA 2010, Somalia: fight over water, pasture sends hundreds fleeing - http://tinyurl.com/mvrlxap
71
La Via Campesina 2011 – Organisation - http://tinyurl.com/m6x93tr
72
World Forum on Food Sovereignty 2001, Final declaration - http://tinyurl.com/mszeaue
73
Rose, N 2010, Food sovereignty and its relevance to Australia - http://tinyurl.com/mhgzpjj
74
AFSA 2013 – The People’s food plan working paper - http://tinyurl.com/ctar9lf
75
De Schutter, O 2011, Agroecology and the right to food - http://tinyurl.com/l3g873e
76
Ibid
77
Ibid
78
Food First 2012, Agroecology, food sovereignty, and the new green revolution - http://tinyurl.com/k9oysly
63
79
De Schutter, O 2011, Agroecology and the right to food - http://tinyurl.com/l3g873e
Pye-Smith C. 2010, “A rural revival in tanzania: how agroforestry is helping farmers to restore the woodlands in Shinyanga region”, Trees for
change no. 7 - http://tinyurl.com/mto7wac
81
Nourishing the Planet 2013, New rice for Africa: shades of both a green revolution and food sovereignty - http://tinyurl.com/llmoswk
82
Wijeratna, A 2012, Fed up: now’s the time to invest in agro-ecology - http://tinyurl.com/me2clyw
83
IAASTD 2009, International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development: global report - http://tinyurl.com/
mrqbwc6
84
Ibid
85
EEA 2013, Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation - http://tinyurl.com/bxwfwls
86
Jacobsen, S-E et al 2013, Feeding the world: genetically modified crops versus agricultural biodiversity, Agronomy for Sustainable
Development - http://tinyurl.com/ksmtmye
87
IAASTD 2009, International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development: global report - http://tinyurl.com/
mrqbwc6
88
International Rice Research Centre 2010, Scuba rice: breeding flood-tolerance into asia’s local mega rice varieties - http://tinyurl.com/l35kokb
89
IIED http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17111IIED.pdf?
90
Heinemann, J. et al. 2013, “Sustainability and innovation in staple crop production in the US Midwest”, International Journal of Agricultural
Sustainability - http://tinyurl.com/kal8526
91
EEA 2013, Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation - http://tinyurl.com/bxwfwls
92
Jacobsen, S-E et al 2013, Feeding the world: genetically modified crops versus agricultural biodiversity, Agronomy for Sustainable
Development - http://tinyurl.com/ksmtmye
93
EEA 2013, Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation - http://tinyurl.com/bxwfwls2
94
Scientific American 2009, Do seed companies control gm crop research? - http://tinyurl.com/mkkw43
95
Grist 2013, Gut punch: Monsanto could be destroying your microbiome- http://tinyurl.com/q8huf4s
80
46
96
Vanloqueren, G & Baret, P 2009, How agricultural research systems shape a technological regime that develops genetic engineering but
locks out agroecological innovations, Research Policy vol 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ms4hqpe
97
EEA 2013, Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation - http://tinyurl.com/bxwfwls2
98
Nature 2013, Plant biotechnology: tarnished promise - http://tinyurl.com/lz637qn
99
Food Alliance 2011, Submission to National Food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/l9o4h8l
100
Eadie, L and Stone, C 2012, Farming smarter not harder, Centre for Policy Development - http://tinyurl.com/k9vwu3b
101
Climate Commission 2013, The Critical decade: Extreme weather events - http://tinyurl.com/k7p7625
102
De Schutter 2012, Country mission to Canada report - http://tinyurl.com/kdhwcbv
103
AFSA 2012, Submission to National Food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/kqt6f35
104
Oxfam 2013, Getting Big Results from Small-Scale Agriculture - http://tinyurl.com/mtkdp6l
105
Rhiannon, L 2013, Carr fails to protect aid from budget cuts - http://tinyurl.com/kd9u42q
106
Oxfam 2011, Growing a Better Future - http://tinyurl.com/3zfydde
107
Oxfam 2012, G20 fails 1 billion hungry people worldwide - http://tinyurl.com/m68zmsw
108
ABS 2012, Australian farming and farmers - http://tinyurl.com/lkq4lyb
109
Hicks, J et al 2012, ‘Succession planning in Australian farming’, Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal, vol 6, no 4
110
Day, G 2012, Submission to the National food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/mvt5ysk
111
Mazzarol, T 2013, The Future of rural enterprises in the global food chain - http://tinyurl.com/ltsvphh
112
Hogan, L & Morris, P 2010, Agricultural and food policy choices in Australia, ABARE-BRS Conference Paper - http://tinyurl.com/l7cxqsa
113
Henzell, T 2007, Australian agriculture: Its history and its challenges, CSIRO Publishing
114
Waters, C 2012, The End of the family farm? - http://tinyurl.com/lvb8krz
115
Mazzarol, T 2013, The Future of rural enterprises in the global food chain - http://tinyurl.com/ltsvphh
116
The Conversation 2013, Do Coles and Woolies control 80% of the market? - http://tinyurl.com/nx79n99
117
Stuart Alexander 2011, Australian grocery market share - http://tinyurl.com/ks8n7a8
118
Keith, S 2012, Coles, Woolworths and the local, Locale: The Australasian-Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies - http://tinyurl.com/m6a2rra
119
Ibid
120
Ibid
121
CHOICE, Food labelling - http://tinyurl.com/kkhdxq8
122
ACCC 2008, Grocery inquiry - http://tinyurl.com/mom4lml
123
Merrett, A 2013, ACCC grocery inquiry will take a long time to bear fruit - http://tinyurl.com/kztdavf
124
Ibid
125
APRN, Exposing the Myths of the TPPA - http://tinyurl.com/llfynda
126
Rickards, L 2012, Drought, flood and a whole lot else: the lived experience of farm households http://tinyurl.com/krbfmsd
127
Climate Commission 2010, Western Australia climate change impacts - http://tinyurl.com/mcoqxjy
128
Kingwell R, et al 2013, Broadacre farmers adapting to climate change, NCCARF - http://tinyurl.com/mo4k3jc
129
IEA 2012, World Energy Outlook - http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
130
Honey, C 2013, Reassess farm debt - http://tinyurl.com/kpulkc8 http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/general/opinion/
reassess-farm-debt/2659401.aspx?storypage=0
131
FAO 2013, Payments for environmental services (PES) in theory and practice: Lessons learned and way forward - http://tinyurl.com/mlxngf7
132
British Ecological Society 2013, Greening the Common Agricultural Policy - http://tinyurl.com/kqwu36j
133
Cribb, J 2010, The Coming Famine, CSIRO Publishing.
134
Eadie, L and Stone, C 2012, Farming smarter not harder, Centre for Policy Development - http://tinyurl.com/k9vwu3b
135
Cribb, J 2010, The Coming Famine, CSIRO Publishing.
136
Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists 202, Blueprint for a living continent - http://tinyurl.com/kq9y9ep
137
See successive State of the Environment Reports - http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/
138
Australian National Land and Water Resources Audit 2002, Final Report - http://tinyurl.com/jwnhjpy
139
Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists 202, Blueprint for a living continent - http://tinyurl.com/kq9y9ep
140
Eadie, L and Stone, C 2012, Farming smarter not harder, Centre for Policy Development -http://tinyurl.com/k9vwu3b
141
See for example the widespread adoption of no-til farming techniques - http://tinyurl.com/kznl769
142
Gunasekera, D., Kim, Y., Tulloh, C., and Ford, M. 2007, ‘Climate change: impacts on Australian agriculture’ , in Australian comodities:
December quarter, ed. , ABARE, Canberra.
143
Garnaut Climate Change Review 2008, Issues Paper 1 Climate Change: Land use - Agriculture and Forestry - http://tinyurl.com/m5ddhld
144
Eadie, L and Stone, C 2012, Farming smarter not harder, Centre for Policy Development -http://tinyurl.com/k9vwu3b
145
De Schutter, O 2011, Agroecology and the right to food - http://tinyurl.com/l3g873e
146
Beale Review 2008, One Biosecurity: A working partnership - http://tinyurl.com/m6hhj2l
147
Ibid
148
Eadie, L and Stone, C 2012, Farming smarter not harder, Centre for Policy Development -http://tinyurl.com/k9vwu3b
149
Ibid
150
RIRIDC 2012, Australian native food industry stocktake - http://tinyurl.com/kvljkoy
151
Campbell, A 2013, Rethinking rural research in Australia - http://tinyurl.com/mm73oqx
47
152
See for example the Primary Industries Education Foundation - http://tinyurl.com/mwue5gh
Low Choy, D & Buxton, M 2012, “Farming the city fringe: Dilemmas for peri-urban farming”, in Farmar-Bowers, Q et al (eds) Food security in
Australia: Challenges and prospects for the future, Springer.
154
The Australian 2012, Paving devours farmland faster than foreign buyers - http://tinyurl.com/lu92e7l
155
Sobels, J 2012, Paving our market gardens: choosing suburbs over food - http://tinyurl.com/kaxjb93
156
Campbell, A & Turton, S 2012, Coal seam gas: just another land use in a big country - http://tinyurl.com/kxrw3mw
157
Rochford, F 2012, “Water sovereignty and food security”, in Farmar-Bowers, Q et al (eds) Food security in Australia: Challenges and prospects
for the future, Springer.
158
Gleeson, B 2012, “A New Harvest of the Suburbs”, ” in Farmar-Bowers, Q et al (eds) Food security in Australia: Challenges and prospects for the
future, Springer.
159
The Australian 2012, Paving devours farmland faster than foreign buyers - http://tinyurl.com/lu92e7l
160
Sobels, J 2012, Paving our market gardens: choosing suburbs over food - http://tinyurl.com/kaxjb93
161
Keating, A 2012, “Food Security in Australia: the Logistics of Vulnerability”, in Farmar-Bowers, Q et al (eds) Food security in Australia:
Challenges and prospects for the future, Springer.
162
DAFF 2012, Resilience in the Australian food supply chain - http://tinyurl.com/lcfdta4
163
Grist 2010, Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores -http://tinyurl.com/n8y2y5x
164
Lockie, S & Pietsch, J 2012, Public opinion on food security - http://tinyurl.com/n79okvm
165
Anglicare Australia 2012, When There’s Not Enough to Eat - http://tinyurl.com/kcl2av8
166
Ibid
167
Rosier, K 2011, Food insecurity in Australia - http://tinyurl.com/jwnfy4a
168
PHAA & DAA, Food Security for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Policy- http://tinyurl.com/n8yvcm7
169
Cox, E 2012, Government remains deaf to the data on income management - http://tinyurl.com/l8w8jsk
170
See for example the Victorian and Tasmanian state government food security strategies
171
Food Alliance 2011, Submission to National Food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/l9o4h8l
172
Secondbite 2011, The Social and nutritional impact of fresh rescued food on Victorian community meal programs and their clients - http://tinyurl.
com/mmz6zhy
173
Tasmanian Food Security Council 2012, Food for all Tasmanians: A food security strategy.
174
Burton, P 2012, Grow your own: Making Australian cities more food-secure - http://tinyurl.com/k2um2yr
175
Ibid
176
Food Alliance 2011, Submission to National Food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/l9o4h8l
177
Giles-Corti, B & Whitzman C 2012, Fat of the land: How urban design can help curb obesity - http://tinyurl.com/mp6kz85
178
WHO 2013, Draft action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013–2020.
179
Ferrie, S 2012, Why a fat tax is not enough to tackle the obesity problem - http://tinyurl.com/lthp6mg
180
Obesity Policy Coalition 2012, Health groups release detailed investigation into the failure of junk food marketing codes - http://tinyurl.com/
jwmkme7
181
DAA 2013, Dietitians: Cooking skills missing link in weight crusade - http://tinyurl.com/mn8ttoy
182
European Federation of Food Banks 2012, No more food waste - http://tinyurl.com/kgmdut6
183
Foodwise 2013, Food waste fast facts - http://foodwise.com.au/food-waste/food-waste-fast-facts/
184
WRAP 2011, Fruit and vegetable resource maps - http://tinyurl.com/lqxpctn
185
Productivity Commission 2006, Waste management - http://tinyurl.com/k3q7t3g
186
See for example the Primary Industries Education Foundation - http://tinyurl.com/mwue5gh
187
Food Alliance 2011, Submission to National Food Plan Green Paper - http://tinyurl.com/l9o4h8l
188
Ibid
189
De Schutter 2011, Food crises: five priorities for the G20 - http://tinyurl.com/3lsch67
190
USDA, Food environment atlas - http://tinyurl.com/ln2o2s4
191
Productivity Commission 2011, Rural research development corporations - http://tinyurl.com/k8r3haj
192
Via Campesina & AFSA 2011, Statement: TPPA Food Sovereignty Network - http://tinyurl.com/lagmm3a
193
Milne, C 2011, $1.7 billion from carbon price to protect biodiversity and help land managers - http://tinyurl.com/kdobnol
194
The Australian 2012, Ex-G-G is the first Advocate for Soils - http://tinyurl.com/l8dgfp6
195
Barham, J 2011, Regional food hubs - http://tinyurl.com/3bo9xpa
196
See ANHPA grants research here - http://tinyurl.com/mkoe9sj
153
48
49
greens.org.au/food
Printed and Authorised by Senator Christine Milne L1 Murray Street Pier, Hobart TAS.